A Year in Pandemonium
by Piccolo Sky
Summary: In the psychiatry field, every student knows that you can write your own ticket to any institution you want...if you can last one year at the most infamous one: Arkham Asylum in Gotham City. But how crazy does one have to be to willinging enter its gates? What sort of toll will it exact for the privilege? Rated M due to language, and nothing else.


Hey everyone. Surprised to hear from me so soon? Well...this story is a different flavor for me. I was hanging around in a bin of unpublished work...and I figured I'd dig it out and dust if off to post.

I usually steer clear of DC and Marvel...namely because the universes are too complex and always-changing to try and stay current on any superhero, not to mention they rarely make lasting changes. However, I wanted to do this ever since playing "Arkham Asylum".

NOTE: This is a Batman Universe fanfic...but not a Batman fanfic per say. The Dark Knight never shows up in this story. Rather, I chose to focus on some of the background characters in Gotham City who have the _real _most dangerous job. I felt like answering a question that has always rolled around in my mind in the Batman Universe...

What kind of person willingly takes a job where you have to go to work every day essentially thinking "today is the day I could die"? Could the average person maintain their sanity in such a place for one year?

Welcome to Arkham Asylum.

* * *

**"A Year in Pandemonium"**

* * *

_June 14__th_

_Well, it took me a few month to finally sit down, and it took a bit longer than that to finally get started, but I finally decided to make use of this Christmas present my older brother gave me. I figure I might as well. I never was one much for 'reflecting' or 'collecting my thoughts', but who knows? Maybe it will be a nice change. God knows I'm not making ends meet doing the same old, same old. What a way to start a new journal…_

_How do you even start? 'Dear Diary'? That sounds way too corny. I guess I should start off talking about who I am. Man…this is dumb. This leather-bound book needs to know who I am. Well, maybe one day I can look back on this and see how far I've come. Alright then…who I am…_

_Well, I guess I'm a deadbeat._

_Heh, well, maybe not quite…but what other name do you have for a guy who's living with his parents at age 21, has been stuck there for five months, no car, no job, and about $17 to his name? Funny. When I was younger, dad gave me the impression that all I would have to do in school was be the best in a lucrative field and the world would beat a path to my door. Well, maybe in a decent economy, but in this current one I'm up shit creek without a paddle. I spent so much time hitting the books I didn't get into any extracurricular activities or leadership roles that all the employment agencies say I should have been in if I wanted to get a job. Amazing how you can work your ass off and have nothing to show for it after three years…_

_Well, that's not entirely true either. I was on the Dean's List for six semesters. I managed to pay a due or two to be in a psychologist society. I've even got a nice little award with a solid marble base on it for being the "Best Interpersonal Communicator" at one of their little conferences I went to. I got along enough with two or three professors for them to want to write a recommendation letter for me. Some of them said that my papers were so good that I'd make one hell of a psychologist one day, and that I was in the perfect environment for it. Well…treating the crazies of Gotham City wasn't really what I had in mind. Just because I was born in this slice of urban blight didn't mean I intended to stay here. I'd almost prefer Los Angeles to this place, or any high income area. I was actually not doing bad in school. This subject really does interest me, and I wouldn't mind the challenge. About the only thing I was really missing was enough money to finish the last two semesters. Well, I had the money for one, but then I decided to take that semester vacationing in Europe before coming back to finish…_

_Surprise, surprise…no jobs available. No one wants a guy with just a high school degree, and I'm a full year away from a Bachelor's. Even the jobs with less education want experience I don't have, and everyone is wanting experience or leadership roles…_

_Well, almost everyone._

_Since I'll be broke in a week, I figured I didn't really have the luxury of being "picky". I'd go to flipping burgers if it didn't kill my chances at a career. It would just scream "underachiever" on my resume. I needed something in a field related to my specialty…anything…anything that could enhance my resume and give me a chance of getting a career once I get out of school. Of course, I might be insane for taking the job even if the interview today goes well. But I'm willing to give it a shot. Everyone in school, faculty, students, and grad students, all said the same thing to me._

"_You last a year at Arkham, there's not a psychiatric facility in the world that won't take you."_

* * *

"Come on in."

The young man, trying not to look too uncomfortable in his business suit (because he certainly wasn't used to wearing one any more than wearing so much cologne and gelling his hair) came in with the most casual smile he could muster. Although he reasoned that this job was in the bag, because, of all the institutions in the world, this one couldn't afford to be choosy, he didn't want to do anything to screw this up. After all, Arkham Asylum was enjoying a new wave of security and treatment from the latest doctors who had come in, all of whom promised lofty and grandiose plans for revolutionizing the facility and curing the inmates. And they wanted only the best.

The doctor who was across from him didn't look like a typical psychiatrist, but, then again, that was only for stereotypes. He had a head of gray hair flecked with black, wire rim glasses, and had put his own suitcoat aside at the moment for just a button down shirt and a tie. He was a bit lanky and skinny, with something of an oversized nose, but he had a friendly demeanor about him, looking almost more like a therapist than a psychologist. He gave the young man a smile as he entered, and as soon as the young man approached, he reached over his desk to extend his hand.

Immediately, the young man took it. The grip was firm and gave a good shake.

"Howard Dante, yes?"

"I usually go by 'Hank', sir."

"Hank…I'm Dr. Reinhart Coben. You can call me 'Reggie', though. Everyone else does. Please, have a seat."

The young man immediately took the cushioned armchair seated across from the desk. Dr. Coben had one as well. His desk was somewhat messy, filled with papers and forms on it. Most of them had been piled up in a hurry to be cleared off, but not fully cleared away…the sign of someone who worked best when things were their "kind of mess". There was an open space in the middle of it, revealing a wide writing surface as well as an expensive pen holder and a tablet with the name of Dr. Reinhart Coben across the front, all looking rather new although the office had been settled into clearly by now. The doctor leaned over the front of his desk and continued to smile.

"Did you have any trouble getting here, Hank?"

"It took me a bit longer to get through security than I thought it would, but I tend to leave early when I don't know how to get some place."

Dr. Coben smiled. "Smart thinking. Well, as you probably know, I'm one of the three current Directors of Treatment at Arkham Asylum. I'm the one in the middle. Dr. Wooddrell has only been here seven months while I've been here almost 20." His smile turned sardonic for a moment. "I don't suppose it's much of a secret telling you that it's a general rule that Arkham Asylum has a very high employment turnover rate, from management right down to janitors. That's part of the reason that if any new orderlies are going to be working in Intensive Treatment, one of us wants to conduct the interview personally."

Hank nodded. "I understand."

Dr. Coben's smile resumed. "Now then…let's get the basic stuff out of the way. Why do you want to work at Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Hank? What do you hope to get out of it?"

The young man paused only for a moment to call up the proper figures he had researched before coming here, and then began to speak.

"Well…I am a psychology major. And I've been looking for a good opportunity to get some real work experience for a while now. I've checked a lot of major institutions across the country, but I realized none of them were as good as working right here in Gotham City's own Arkham Asylum. It has the facilities to see and treat 95 percent of all types of mental illness, adequate room to house 60 percent of the patients within the bi-state area, some of the most notable individuals in the modern field of psychiatry like Rudyard Poe and Wallace Doyle were interns here, and, in all honesty, this is a completely unique experience for anyone who's interested in the realm of psychology."

Dr. Coben nodded, keeping his smile. "You're definitely right there, Hank. Now then…what would you say is your biggest strength?"

Hank paused momentarily, but then spoke again. "I think my biggest strength is my attention to detail. I think in this line of work you can't be too careful. You have to be ready to pick up on patient reactions at a moment's notice, and you have to keep an eye out for things that are out of place. I'm quite good at that. Back in school, all of my professors always said I picked up on details that the other students would always miss. If I saw a mistake, I would jump on it."

Dr. Coben nodded again. "And…what about your biggest weakness?"

Hank was ready for this one. This was a loaded question. You give a weakness, they have a reason not to hire you. You give them a weakness that sounds like a strength, they know you're bullshitting them. So, instead, he immediately formed a look of confusion. He bowed his head for a moment and moistened his lips. "Um…hmm…" He mused aloud. "I…don't think I can really think of one off the top of my head."

"That's alright." Dr. Coben responded, soon moving on to the next question, as Hank notched a small victory in his belt.

The rest of the interview proceeded pretty standard through three or four more questions and responses. Basic stuff. What would you do in this situation? What do you want us to know about you that's not in your cover letter or application? Etc. Finally, it came to the next phase.

"Now…" Dr. Coben said, giving a bit of a shrug. "Any questions for me?"

"Yes, I do. Would I be working directly with the…'special' inmates…right away?"

Dr. Coben's grimace returned. "I take it you're referring to the Level E patients. And no, we generally try to keep new orderlies away from working directly with the Level E patients until they have some experience under their belts. We do occasionally need to reassign individuals due to shortages, and you would be expected to know all the proper procedures to deal with Level E patients at that time, so keep that in mind if you're hired. That said, this _is_ an institution for the criminally insane. Even the Level G patients have been deemed unfit to live in general society, and most of the patients would be in Blackgate right now if they hadn't been declared legally insane."

The doctor's voice lowered a bit here as he leveled his gaze on the young man. "There is no such thing as a 'safe' resident of Arkham Asylum, Hank. So keep that in mind if you start work here. Don't get lax just because a patient isn't in Level E."

"I won't, doctor." Hank readily answered. "Do I need to complete any special kind of training that I need to fund by myself before I can start work?"

Dr. Coben shook his head. "That won't be necessary. Experience is always preferable, but we do train quite a few members of the staff here. The older workers here will provide all the orientation you need, all of it free of charge. If you're referring to weapons training, that won't be necessary. The guard staff handles that area. There are special firearms loaded with rubber bullets and tasers in the facility, but those are under lock and key and only the guards are allowed access to them. They have all the appropriate training and experience with the weapons necessary."

Hank nodded. "Why did you decide to start working here, doctor?"

Dr. Coben smiled again in response to that. However, in spite of the smile, his eyes developed a very serious look to them.

"Much the same reason you're deciding to work here, I suppose. I was once a student myself. Of course, I spent my internship at Bellevue in New York before moving onto Metropolis for my residency. However, Arkham always held my special interest. No matter how much the various directors want to deny it, Arkham Asylum is famous. The people who are here are, quite honestly, above and beyond any other cases known to man and most of the world. To most of the people in Gotham City, all we have is a house full of hopeless cases. The truth of the matter is by studying the more famous inmates of Gotham City we have learned so much about the mentality of the criminally insane that we've been able to treat dozens of more minor cases, prevent similar acts of insanity from coming forth in unstable individuals in the general public, and have been of inconceivable importance to the Gotham City Police Department in profiling criminals. I keep these things in mind every time someone walks up to me on the street and says that this facility is worthless.

"We are dealing with the worst of the worst here, Hank. The final stage cancer. The advanced case of AIDS. This is the ultimate proving ground. If we can find a way to cure the people here, then we'll have won the ultimate victory. Everything else from here is 'minor' by comparison. Any treatment here that shows improvement is almost immediately seized by the psychiatric community worldwide. One can't begin to imagine what sort of benefit that will be to the world if we can actually render one of these individuals completely sane. That is why it is so important that we never give up."

He leaned in a bit more at this, his smile fading somewhat.

"This is no small challenge, Hank. And it requires exceptional people on all ends and at all areas of treatment. I'm hoping if you come to work here that you'll decide to give that full commitment every single day you come into work."

The young man stared back for only a moment, before he readily nodded back. "I take very great pride in my field, as well as in this facility, doctor. I will."

The smile returned.

"Then you should get along well here, Hank."

* * *

_July 12__th_

_Well, after almost a month, it looks like I'm finally in. Technically, I was hired two days after the interview. It took them almost four weeks to clear me a badge. I can't say I really blame them. This badge acts as a security clearance card, so essentially I've been subjected to a battery of background checks and drugs tests to make sure I'm 100% clean before they let me loose in Arkham. There's been too much history of them letting in new employees who ended up being hired by someone on the inside to give them a way out._

_Crazy as it seems, and desperate as I am, I actually ended up with a pretty good deal. An orderly may not seem like much, but I do get to do some work with the patients, and that counts as good experience. And, frankly, record or not, Arkham Asylum is infamous. Everyone psychologist in the country knows about it as well as its high-profile cases. Sure, this place may be dangerous as Hell…literally…but if I can just last twelve months…eleven now…I'll be in the clear and I won't have to worry about experience on my resume any more._

_Of course, now I REALLY have to work. Dr. Coben gave me a few packets of general information about Arkham Asylum after the interview, and in four weeks I've had more than enough time to know them all frontwards and backwards. _

_Too bad that was only a warm-up for today. I figured that the first day would be almost all orientation, even though I was suiting up in the orderly uniform and wearing the badge for the first time. _

_But I never expected Ralph Finchley…_

* * *

Ralph Finchley was one of the uglier people that Hank had ever seen. He looked more akin to someone that you would expect to see walking through the Narrows after midnight rather than having a position of being one of the head orderlies in Arkham. Then again, this _was_ Arkham Asylum, and so perhaps he shouldn't be so quick to judge.

He was a solidly built man…a bit overweight, but still rippling with muscle. His arms had numerous tattoos on them, poking out behind the identical green uniforms that looked almost like scrubs among the orderlies, of which Hank was now clothed in one. His face looked rough and hewn, almost like chiseled from wood rather than made of flesh and blood, and all of his features were scrunched to give an old, angry look to everything about him. Aside from being mostly bald and having cut his remaining hair short, another conspicuous item was a scar running about the third of the way across his neck, clearly from a knife.

Hank was in a room with seven other recently-hired orderlies in the Arkham Mansion for their first orientation. Contrasted to the meeting he had a month ago, this was in a much older and darker-looking room. The place looked like it was mostly untouched since when the place was founded, and in the original color scheme. Rather than the peaceful greens of most institutions, it was full of reds and blacks, none of which were terribly comforting. The high rising walls and the exposed ductwork overhead further added to the look of the place, giving the impression someone was in some sort of condemned house…or a haunted one. It served to remind Hank firmly that, maximum security facility with highly-trained guards and high-quality doctors or not, this was Arkham Asylum, and nine out of ten people in Gotham City would rather walk through the urban blight districts of the town covered in flashy jewelry than walk through here.

Folding chairs had been pulled out and set up for the new guys in the center of the old room. What looked like old security station equipment had been set up to simulate a patient cell. There was another head orderly there: Zachary Virgil. He looked slightly younger than Ralph, less well built, and his face was more pleasant to look at with dark, short hair of his own fully covering his own head. He also looked less mean, but no less hard. He was standing to the side at the moment, right next to one of the corrections' officers, a man named Aaron Cash. In spite of himself, Hank frequently glanced over to his hand…or lack thereof. He had never seen a man with a prosthetic hook for a hand before. Finally, two other members of the guard staff stood with him. All were watching Ralph at the moment.

The head orderly had stepped out a moment ago in front of them, and proceeded to look them all over with the same type of stare a drill sergeant gives raw recruits. There was nothing but disdain in that expression. After a few moments, he finally spoke. His voice was grim and low, like an old soldier who had seen too much over the years.

"I hear people in my neighborhood and on the news sometimes. They say even if they had all those weapons and gadgets and crap, they'd never want to be the Batman. They say, 'That Batman…he's got the worse job in Gotham City.' You know what I say every time I hear that?"

Abruptly, the voice of Ralph turned loud, sharp, and furious, and boomed over the orderlies as he advanced on them.

"_Fuck…that…shit."_

The change was so severe, and Ralph so domineering, that some of the orderlies actually recoiled slightly. However, Ralph was just getting warmed up.

"The Bat…" He continued in his booming voice. "Only has to beat the shit out of them and then drop them off here! Then it's _my_ job to take care of them! The Bat can go after them with body armor or tasers or even a gun if he wanted to! _I_ have to go after them wearing nothing but this damn Velcro-strapped uniform! You know how long it takes these sons of bitches to tear through this? You think they can't kill you with it if you give them a chance? The Bat doesn't have to wheel these people to and fro every day! He doesn't have to let them out of the cuffs and restraints when a doctor who's on the other side of the fucking island tells him to! He doesn't have to feed them, bathe them, put them to bed…and he doesn't have to deal with them when they get mean and decide to take a shit in their pants and have you clean it up! And trust me…each and every one of you is going to be doing that sometime in the next month!"

By now, Ralph was hovering over the eight, all of whom had leaned back in their chairs. The very room seemed to shake as he looked over them and boomed in his deep voice. He looked over them a moment, then suddenly snapped to Hank. A moment later, he got down in his face and pointed to his scar. Hank, in spite of himself, recoiled another inch.

"You see this scar?"

He immediately wheeled to the other orderlies, walking the line and showing them it.

"You all see this scar? Take a damn good look at this scar. You know how I got it? Four years ago, I was giving Victor Zsasz, who, I might add, is currently in the Penitentiary, a wash when he snapped around and tried to slit my throat with a metal shaving he had under his fingernail. It's only because the guard I was with was a damn good shot that he didn't. And you know what…three days and ten stitches later, _I had the serve the goddamn son-of-a-bitch his fucking breakfast like a goddamn maid!_ Don't _none_ of you tell me I haven't got the worst job in Gotham City, just like the rest of you!

"There are three kinds of crazy sons-of-bitches in this city. The sanest ones are the ones you're all going to be working with once you work Level E. You don't think they're that sane? Boys…these guys do _nothing_ every day except wait for the day when they get to get out of here, and in the meantime they're planning how they're going to kill _you_ to do it. I'll be damned if it doesn't take a sane person to do that as many times as they have. The crazier ones are the ones who work for them…because these assholes would sooner kill a guy then pay him back five fucking dollars for buying them lunch at McDonalds. That's what they do, boys…when they get bored, they kill a guy.

"And the craziest ones are you and me, because we decided for God knows what reason that we're going to take care of them. We're fucking wild animal handlers. I don't know how much bullshit the doctors upstairs told you, but that's what it was: bullshit. These guys are rabid and for some reason it's not legal to gas them yet. And if you think I care if you tell the doctors that, go right ahead. They aren't going to fire me. They aren't stupid. They know I'm one of the few guys who's actually willing to deal with Mr. Veidt. I'm worth my weight in gold here.

"_You guys_, on the other hand. You're going to walk into Level E, those bastards are going to take one look at you, and they're going to say 'fresh meat'. You try to claim you're not, you're stupid. These guys can smell you out of a crowd. They've been in here so long they're good at it. They're going to jump on the first mistake you make. And I don't want to hear any of that bullshit about how you all aren't scared of them. Boys, _I'm_ scared of them and I've been working here 13 years. You try to tell me you aren't scared then you're either a liar or a fool and I've got no patience for you either way.

"I just want you all to know one thing before I hand this over to Zack. I don't care about _any _of you enough to risk my neck for you when you do something stupid. You better memorize the damn procedural checksheets for every single fucking inmate in here and you better know them so well you can recite them verbatim in your sleep. Because you make _one fucking mistake_, and I'm going to go up to administration and tell them I saw you taking a bribe from an inmate. I'm so not kidding. I'd rather get your ass fired than my ass dead, and that's a fact."

Without another look, Ralph turned away and walked to the side. However, Zachary didn't immediately step out. He stood there in the silence, letting what had just been said sink in a bit. And it did sink in. Hank himself didn't quite feel so easy anymore. Whereas the reality of his new job had begun to settle in when he entered the room, Ralph's speech began to make him realize just what he was undertaking. Dr. Coben's speech had been a month ago, but at this point his statements seemed farther away than ever. Still, he was handling it well. One of the other orderlies was quivering now. He was breathing stiffly, and was clearly afraid.

Zachary, at last, uncrossed his arms and moved over in front of the eight of them, taking Ralph's initial position. He crossed his arms behind him once there, again taking an almost military stance although more focused. He looked over the eight for a moment, his gaze resting on each one…until he came to the quivering orderly. He stared at him a moment, his expression not changing.

"…What's your name?" He called out to him, his voice considerably milder than Ralph's.

The man swallowed. "Ed…Ed Dawson."

"Ed, I'm going to give you one chance right now." Zachary calmly responded. "I'm going to give you sixty seconds to pull yourself together, get out of that chair, walk up to administration, and hand in your resignation. Otherwise, I'm going to have them fire you. I'm sorry, you can't work here. I don't want you in my unit and neither do any of the other orderlies."

"Ed" hesitated only a moment, as long as it took the logic in his brain to realize that losing this job would be doing him a favor, not a crime. At that, he drew himself up out of the chair and began to walk for the exit. His footsteps echoed even though he was wearing cloth shoes, and when he reached the door the rusty hinges squeaked loudly as he pulled it open and left. Zachary, meanwhile, looked back to the others.

"I like types like Mr. Dawson there." He stated simply. "Because if they can't handle this job, they show it right on the first day. They don't break down the first time they're paired to a Level E prisoner. If the rest of you feel you can't handle this, now's your chance. After this, you get fired from here. If you stay in those chairs, I'm assuming you can handle it."

The line was silent for a moment. Hank didn't look to the others. For whatever reason, be it bravery or stupidity, as Ralph had put it, he stared right back at Zachary and didn't move. After a moment, however, he heard a click from the metal of one of the chairs. Another orderly walked by him and went out. Again the door opened, and closed again. There was silence for a moment afterward.

"Alright, I'll assume the rest of you are in here for the long haul, but we'll see if that's true soon enough." Zachary responded. Inhaling a bit, he shifted weight. "I bring Mr. Finchley in here because he's more effective at painting the truth about Arkham than I am. Everything he said is true. This is more than a job for the highly skilled. It's a job that's not for the timid. The average turnover rate for orderlies is 4 months. I give this speech that you're about to hear a couple times a month. I expect that out of the eight of you that walked in here, I'm going to only see one of you still working here a year from now.

"First thing I'm going to do is go over a few key unwritten rules that I expect you all to obey as religiously, if not more so, than the standard rules. On that note, don't forget about those either. In addition to the packets you've already received, I'm going to give you each a 100-page packet of special information for orderlies following today's orientation. I'll give you ten days to know it inside and out. That may seem rough, but, as you now know from Mr. Finchley's speech, the inmates in here are not messing around. I expect none of you to either. This is as real as it gets. Some of the situations you'll be put into in Arkham will be equivalent to you running into one of these guys in a dark alley at night. So keep these unwritten rules in mind because they just might save your life.

"But before that, I want to do a quick breakdown by levels. Level G is general public…the people who had nervous breakdowns or become unfit to live by themselves. They're the only ones you're allowed to handle and transport on your own. For everyone else, at least two guards have to always be on hand. That includes Level M, insane individuals who are guilty of misdemeanors, Level F, insane individuals who are guilty of felonies, and Level E. For those of you who don't know yet…E stands for 'Execution'. Each one of the people in Level E would have gotten a death sentence by now if they weren't declared legally insane. Keep that in mind when you deal with them. There's also Level I, which stands for 'Incarceration'. There's very few of these, but they're very important. A few of them you may be familiar with are Waylon Jones and Victor Fries…people who can't be stored in Blackgate due to inadequate facilities. The guards handle those by themselves, so you don't need to worry about them, which also means you don't do a single thing for them, even if they shout at you from their cells that they need something. You inform a guard."

Zachary paused to inhale deeply, and focused himself.

"Rule one…these people are _not_ your friends, and you are _not_ their therapists. So don't pretend they are or think that you're the magical one of all the hundreds of orderlies that have come and gone over the years who is going to break through to these people and make them 'see the light' by talking to them. They ask you any questions other than about the weather or who's winning in the National League, you don't answer them. They ask you for any favors, you don't give them to them unless you run it by the head orderly. I don't care if they only want a cup of water…they don't get it unless one of us says so. Some of these people like pretending they're nice and kind and sweet right up until the second they break your neck. Just like Ralph said, that's how some of them get their kicks. They have nothing better to do while they're in here. I don't know how many times it has to happen before people catch on, but Pamela Isley's been doing that for years and she's going to do it again this month. That's not a prediction, that's a fact. Don't be the idiot she ends up suckering in, and don't think, for one moment, that these people are your friends. I don't care if they've not caused you a bit of trouble for 300 days, you never skimp on security. And _especially_ don't start practicing whatever some of you learned in school on these people. That's not only irresponsible, it's a felony…it's called 'fraud', because none of you are licensed.

"Rule two…watch what you say. As a general rule, don't speak to the inmates. If they're behaving, and _only_ if they're behaving, you should keep yourself isolated to the 'Essential Three Phrases': 'Hello', 'How are you doing today?', and 'That's nice'. If you say anything else besides that, you're probably telling them too much. If they start acting up or if they keep a line of conversation going past three responses, give them the cold shoulder. The nicer ones are just messing with you. The meaner ones are trying to get into your head. Like I said, they don't have anything else to do in here. _You_ are their favorite pastime. Jonathan Crane boasts on his ability to drive orderlies and guards to suicide and madness. For the most part, everyone in here thinks they're both better than you and smarter than you, and 99 times out of 100 they're right in the sense that they can manipulate you in ways you can't imagine. So keep that in mind.

"Rule three…always stick to procedure. I was serious about knowing that code. If you dig up Arkham Asylum's records of escapes, it's the same thing time and time again. 'Buckle was not fastened securely.' 'Straps could still fit thumb and forefinger underneath.' 'Patient did not take medication at last scheduled time.' 'Orderly did not wait for guards to get into proper position.' People get seriously hurt when they don't follow the rules…or they die. Always, always, _always_ stick to procedure.

"Rule four…keep your eyes open at all times. One of your main tasks is going to be patient transit. The guards will handle restraining the patient and it will be your job to check them out before moving them. You're going to do it so many times you're going to get sick and tired of it. I'm here to tell you never to slack off on it. That's the most important job you're going to get. And don't just give them a once-over for injuries, either. Check their faces. Are they sweaty? Hot? Cold? Wet? Check their pupils. Are they dilated? Contracted? Check their breath…at least, those who you can. Any alcohol or chemicals on them? Are their clothes dirty? Unusually clean? Does their footwear look like it was hastily put on? Their hands are most important. Are they hiding things under their fingernails? Have they sharpened their fingernails? Are their hands dirty? Are their hands stained or chemical burned? Some of these inmates have been able to mix compounds in their cells through smuggling before. Did they eat too little or too much of their meals? And don't forget behavior. Is the patient acting too nice? If they act mean, that's same-old, same-old. If they're nice, you have to start sweating. They only act nice when they're up to something. Every last thing, no matter how small, that looks out of the ordinary…write it up and submit it to their doctor.

"Finally, rule five…you're expected to follow procedure to the letter, but you're not expected to stop there. Anytime you have reason to use a bit more caution, anytime you think something is up, you go on and do it…even if it's me or Mr. Finchley breathing down your neck to pick up the pace. Is everything clear?"

The remaining six, Hank included, all gave nods and yeses.

"In that case, let's get right to it." Zachary said, even as he turned to the side, indicating to the fake station and the guards. "Officer Cash has been kind enough to supervise us today to ensure we're following our end of the procedures just as he and his men are following theirs. First procedure we're going to go through is transit protocol, since everything else is pretty much a reduced version of that other than fire escape, which you better all pray never happens while you work here because this island will turn to Hell in about six minutes. Now all of you, come on up and stand right here. For the purposes of this demo, I'll be acting like the patient…"

* * *

_August 14__th_

_Ralph Finchley was right. I _was_ crazy to start work here. _

_The first week I was jumping at everything. It didn't matter that I was only working the first three levels, it was crazy. Some of the patients will start calling for "help" even if nothing is happening to them. I responded the first few times before the other orderlies told me they always do that. But now, I have to listen to them do it again for hours and hours. Other patients just laugh and laugh and laugh in empty, hollow voices for hours, and if they hear you say anything, they repeat it back to you, only screaming. And I can't count how many people I've had to clean up after meals and bathroom this week alone. Some days I come back just smelling like urine…_

_It's still summer but I have to wear thick sleeves to work under my uniform now because some of the patients bite and claw. I've had to have two tetanus shots this first month alone. (Thank God that they pay for them.) I've been spat on five times, three with snot in it, and one even tried to throw his crap at me, and for the next hour all the rest of the patients in the hall chanted: "MONKEY HOUSE! MONKEY HOUSE!" It took me everything I had not to yell at them to shut up._

_Night shifts are the worst. Some of them bray at the moon like dogs. Some of them just start screaming at 2 AM and wake all the other patients up and they start throwing fits. Then the more "sane" ones start bawling like babies and beg to be let out for the next four days._

_I never really appreciated the term, "It's a madhouse", before I started working at Arkham Asylum. It's been wrecked, burned, and misconstructed so many times due to the patients bribing remodelers to leave in escape tunnels that just the layout of the island is enough to be maddening. Patients aside, this place is a disaster of management. They've got dozens of different doctors and therapists running around and all of them are practicing a different method. One wants more medication. One wants to let the Level E patients run around and pick flowers. One wants to pretty much torture the bastards and turn us into a glorified superprison. Orders for patients change daily, and I have to commit them to memory each time. Ralph keeps yelling at me. Zachary says I'll get used to it, but I really don't see how._

_I'm finally generating an income, but it's peanuts. Barely enough to make ends meet. I'm still living with my parents, although now I'm paying for a used car. I could go out once or twice a week, but the Asylum leaves me drained. I come home, go to bed, and don't get up before 90 minutes before I need to check in for my next shift. It doesn't help that people keep calling off or get time off for injuries, meaning I have to pull 12 hour shifts._

_And, frankly, the place is so dark and musty that I don't even like eating my lunch there. A few of the older orderlies are asking me to get in on the nightly poker games. I never was one for gambling, but anything to get my mind off the damn screaming 24/7…_

_On top of all that, things got worse for me today. I've been in this place for a month. _

_It was time for my first Level E patient._

_Although I've been doing this with the other patients for months, I was supervised by Zachary. He said, for the first week, they always come along. However, they stay out of patient's view, pretending to be checking out different patients. He told me the reason for that…_

* * *

"As you know too well by now…" Zachary said as he walked briskly down the hall of the penitentiary, Hank following by matching his speed at his side. "These guys live for 'fresh meat'. They're probing you the moment they see you. They already know you're afraid of them. What they don't know is if you can control that fear around them. To help out…what wing are we in right now?"

For a moment, Hank, as he walked along, thought that was a legitimate question, that Zachary, for whatever reason, didn't know. However, he soon realized it was for his own benefit. And so he answered. "The west wing."

"Right." Zachary answered as he kept walking. "If you have any reason to tell them this, you tell all the inmates in the west wing you've been working the east wing for a year already. When you're in the east wing, you tell them you've been working in the west wing for a year already. To help this illusion out, we actually do 'flip' personnel occasionally and give them a nice surprise when they try pulling shit. But we don't want them getting lucky today. As you know, I'm going to be to one side supervising. I'm only going to step in if I see you floundering or making a major screwup."

"Got it."

"So what's the procedure?"

Hank paused momentarily, but then began to recite it.

"First, obtain a two guard escort and cart materials for transport. Next, inspect the cart, straps, and shackles for signs of wear, tear, or sabotage."

"Alright, then what?"

"Proceed to the patient's cell with one guard in front and one guard in back. On reaching the cell, knock on the door three times and inform the patient that they will be undergoing transit now. After that, stand back three feet from the viewing window and wait for the patient to assume the neutral position against the back of the wall. Have both guards get into the yellow circle position. Unlock the cell and stand back. After fifteen seconds, open the door and stand back, waiting an additional fifteen seconds."

"Most orderlies forget the second fifteen seconds. Good job. Next?"

"If patient is still in the neutral position, position the cart in the proper space, place one hand on the call button to signal an escape, and tell the guards to begin restraining procedures. Keep eyes on the patient at all times and depress button at the first sign of physical violence or trouble. Keep hand on the call button until patient has been fully shackled, restrained, placed on the cart, and fully tethered to the cart. If any special restraints are needed, inform the guards. Only after speaking to the guards and confirming that the patient is fully secure do I remove my hand from the call button."

"Right. Then?"

"Conduct examination of the patient and jot any and all worthwhile findings down. If there is a serious issue, contact their supervising doctor or the head of security as necessary. Once all things have been noted, patient is ready for transit. Note time of departure and staff present. Proceed to deliver patient to their designate treatment area as outlined on the form."

"There's a screw up." Zachary cut off. "You double check the treatment area as outlined on the form by radioing their supervising doctor. You _never_ assume that the name on the form is right. It's entirely too easy for them to forge it or get someone to do it for them."

Hank closed his eyes and winced a bit at his mistake.

"Don't get too bent out of shape." Zachary responded. "That's why I'm asking you now rather than waiting for it to come later. Then what?"

"…On arrival at the treatment area, give the report to the supervising doctor or therapist and explain any misconceptions. After that, place hand on the call button as before while guards, if permissible, unfasten the patient and collect the cart and straps once done. Store them in the proper area. Otherwise, return to post until requested to reclaim patient for transit back to their cell. Follow the same procedure."

"Could have left out that last part, but other than that, you're right. Just don't freeze up on me. You know Tom Buff?"

That was the name of one of the other five hired along with Hank. "Yeah."

"Don't want to make you nervous, but he couldn't take it yesterday when I had him do Harvey Dent. He broke up just from Dent looking at him. You've got Jonathan Crane today, so tell me if it gets to be too much."

"Alright."

"This is fairly simple stuff. Just follow the procedure and you'll be fine."

The two walked in silence for about 50 more meters before they reached the security station into the main penitentiary. Hank, in spite of himself, felt his brow begin to sweat. He swallowed once and clenched his hands into fists. He almost felt like the scanning security laser was burning into him when the guard at the checkpoint activated it, looking for any objects on them. Soon, the light turned green, and the huge, heavy, metal door in front of Hank and Zachary slowly slid aside…opening the way to the Level E block.

Hank almost felt like he was walking into a coloseum…or a nightmare…as he stepped into the chamber. Though they were all under lock and key, he was in a wing filled with the most notorious figures in Gotham City. Even the Batman wouldn't try to take all of these guys at once, yet they were all right here. Just like the other blocks, there was hooting and hollering in here. Some of the people were just unknowns…wild savages. But he knew some of them were the real demons, the worst of the worst…people he had only seen on TV and newspapers and had come to regard as being almost mythical monsters. Now, only metal doors and few bars separated him from each of them. Each raving cry he heard, each pound against metal bars…he wondered who it was. Which of the people who had been locked in here over the years?

Hank did as he had been taught over the past month and didn't look into a single cell as he went about his business. He went to the guard station first and provided them with the ID numbers and slip authorizing the patient transfer. Two were assigned to him. Next, he moved to the restraints depo and obtained everything he needed. After that, he began to wheel his way out to the appropriate cell. All of this under the watchful eye of Zachary, who followed at a distance but kept track of everything.

The last hall was the worst. As Hank walked down it and approached Crane's cell, he couldn't help but remember news reports. Reports of how Crane had driven people insane after ten minutes with him… Reports of how he made entire neighborhoods tear each other apart… How he turned hardened cops into crying children… About how some of the last doctors to treat him ended up cutting their own throats to stop the hallucinations caused by his infamous "fear toxin"… He felt himself actually slowing as he walked along, although he did not stop…right up until he halted right in front of the cell itself.

For a moment, he realized this was it. The guards were at his sides, but Zachary had already halted at a distance, making him impossible to see through the window. Hank swallowed, but paused only a moment. He had to get this over with, and he couldn't show his rawness.

He turned and walked over to the door, reached out, and gave a knock on it.

"Dr. Crane." He called inside. "It's time for transport to today's therapy session."

After a moment, a long, loud sigh came from the inside of the cell. What sounded like a newspaper being put down went out…before he saw him.

In all honesty, it was surprising. He didn't expect this deranged lunatic to look so "normal". All he saw was a man in a white patient's uniform, tall but thin and lanky, get up off of the cell's bed and slowly rise to his feet. His hair was black, a bit overgrown, and messy, but Hank could easily get a look at his face. Aside from a bit of a large, hawk-like nose and thin-rimmed, circular-lensed glasses resting on his face, everything looked average. Even the way he regarded the entire procedure looked like a regular man who was going through motions rather than the outwardly insane looks he had seen from everyone else.

At any rate, Crane removed his glasses, folded them, and placed them on a tray near the door before he walked to the far side of the cell and faced the wall. After doing so, he spread he legs out, reached both arms up, stuck them out, and placed his hands on the back of his head…the neutral position.

Hank was almost overwhelmed. He had half-expected a hellish scarecrow from his worst nightmares, or at least a raving psychopath. This looked like just a typical inmate in prison. It almost caused him to let down his guard…before his thoughts kicked in. This was probably the worst type, ones that could "take off their disguises". It just made them _look_ human. They weren't actually human.

"…Are you going to keep me waiting all day?"

Hank suddenly snapped out of it. To his surprise, he had been lost in thought. And now, Jonathan Crane, one of the most infamous mass-murderers and lunatics in the city…was talking to him. Even his voice was odd. It wasn't threatening…at least, not now…but it was different. It seemed to be unnaturally smooth and low, almost melodic. The kind of voice that, despite being quiet, would get into your head and stay there. To Hank's surprise, he opened his mouth and nearly responded to Crane, before his logic once again kicked in.

_Damnit, don't lose it now… He hasn't even tried anything yet._

Reaching over, Hank unlocked the cell. After that, he stood back and waited fifteen seconds. However, only ten seconds into it, Crane spoke again.

"You're new, aren't you?"

Hank hesitated only a split second, then answered. "I've been working in the east wing for a year. They transferred me here recently."

Although he couldn't see his face, Hank heard a small chuckle.

"You're new." Crane said with complete certainty. "I can almost smell it dripping off of you."

Hank didn't answer this time. He remembered the rules. The fifteen seconds were up, so he walked up to the cell and opened it. He stood back and waited another fifteen seconds. Crane didn't move another inch from his position.

"…What's your name?"

Hank didn't answer.

"Too afraid to tell me even that?" Crane asked.

"…Harold Dante, Dr. Crane. You can call me Hank." The young man soon answered, keeping his voice calm.

Another chuckle. "Welcome to Arkham Asylum, Hank. Nice to meet you."

The fifteen seconds went up, and the guards moved in as Hank moved to the call button. Crane didn't say anything else as they proceeded to completely restrain him, carry him out, place him in his cart, and strap him into that.

"Is the patient fully secure?" Hank asked when they were done.

"The patient is fully secure." One of the guards answered.

Hank nodded, and proceeded to move over to the door, pulling out a clipboard and switching to a fresh form. After filling out the top, he began to move over to the restrained Crane. In spite of himself, he was almost like someone near a hot stove. He was literally inches away from the psychopath. Worse than that, as he got near to him enough to start work…he saw that Crane was looking right at him, eyeing him like a predatory hawk. A slight smile was on his face, as if he was enjoying what he was doing.

In response, Hank turned his head away from his face and started the exam with his body. He tried his best to ignore it and look like it was merely annoying him…not unnerving him, like it truly was.

The young man was about halfway through when Crane spoke again.

"How do you like it so far, Hank?"

Hank paused again for a fraction of a second, then resumed. "It's fine, Dr. Crane."

A louder chuckle this time. "Is that so? Aren't you afraid of it?"

"A little." Hank responded as he kept going about his work.

"A little." Crane echoed. "Well, that's a start."

Crane once again went silent as Hank continued his exam. The silence of the chamber almost seemed to grow in that span. Even the yelling from down the hall seemed to diminish. Finally, Hank finished with the body. Inhaling a bit, he looked up to Crane's face. He was still looking at him…still with that slight smile. The orderly forced himself to ignore it as he looked him over.

He stayed silent through all of it, until the last part of the exam…checking his pupils. Hank was forced to look right into Crane's eyes for a moment to check them out. Trying to get it over with, he looked right into them.

Crane spoke again at that moment.

"I think you'd do well in here, Hank." He said in almost a whisper. "I think you'd fit right in. And I should know…I _am_ a psychologist."

In spite of himself, Hank froze again. For a moment, he looked right at him, right into the eyes of the psychopath, right into the mouth of madness.

Then, he broke off and leaned back. "Patient is ready for transport." He stated.

Crane smiled a bit more for a second, then simply leaned back into the cart patiently. Hank tore off the form and put the clipboard back in the door slot, then moved around behind the cart. Soon, he was pushing Crane down the hall with the guards flanking him once again.

He rubbed the back of his neck once to get rid of the cold sweat.

* * *

_August 19__th_

_Holy shit, I'm scared out of my mind right now. I don't care what Zachary says, I told my parents to go to a hotel tonight. I don't know why the Hell I don't go to one too. There just had to be a goddamn thunderstorm tonight too, didn't there? Shit…I'm not going to sleep at all tonight. By now, the telephone operator at Arkham has to get sick of me calling every fifteen minutes checking to see if he's still in his cell. Thank God dad has a .45. It makes me feel a little safer…so long as I don't think about how many people with guns over the years have tried to shoot this guy only to end up blowing their own brains out instead…_

_I guess I better write about how this happened. Who knows? This may be my last entry…and at least it can be used as more evidence for the bastard. They can't very well say it wasn't premeditated at his next trial…_

* * *

Hank was beginning to think he was getting the hang of this. He almost preferred direct work with the Level E patients after four days of working with Crane. They were far more "civil", you might say. Half of the others back in the other blocks seemed to lack the mental capacity to even get into the neutral position. The guards usually had to go in and do it themselves. And, at least for the moment, Crane wasn't making any messes for Hank to clean up. He wasn't sure how it would change when he went to the other Level E patients, but for now it was alright.

Things had been better since their initial meeting. Crane hadn't said anything else other than a "good morning" to Hank since their first encounter, and the young man had gradually eased up around him. That didn't stop him from exercising full caution, however. After all, he was still under Zachary's watchful eye for three more days including today. Still, things were starting to get routine, and some of Hank's fear was beginning to fade.

It was transit time again. The equipment had once again been brought out, and the two guards had come with Hank. Now positioned outside the ever-more-familiar cell, Hank reached over, gave a knock, and once again made the announcement: "Dr. Crane. It's time for today's therapy session."

Just as in the previous four days, Crane got up from his cot and looked out the window right at Hank. It was unsettling every time…but he was getting more used to it. Today, however, something was a bit off.

Crane was smiling a bit wider.

"Good morning, Hank. I see it's you again. This is what, the fifth day in a row? That's exactly like a new orderly would do it, isn't it?"

Hank paused momentarily. He didn't like that smile. Furthermore, Zachary had given him marks off on his first time for responding to Crane too much. As a result, he simply said nothing.

Crane kept looking at him with the same smile. He didn't move.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue today?"

"…Dr. Crane, if you'd please take the neutral position."

"I'd like to talk a bit first. I haven't had any conversations with new orderlies in a while. And you _are_ a new orderly, aren't you, Hank?"

"…Dr. Crane, please take the neutral position."

"Why don't you tell me you're a new orderly, Hank? I already know it. Are you afraid I'll have power over you if you say it's true?"

Hank didn't answer. At this point, it was time to take the cold shoulder approach. He simply stood and waited. After a moment, Crane smiled a bit wider before turning to face the wall. However, he didn't spread out his legs or put his hands up. He simply stood there, and for a few moments he didn't move.

Hank moistened his lips. "Please spread your legs and put your hands on-"

"You can't move out of your parents' house on this salary, Hank." Crane cut off. "Even if you move to a different district than the east side."

The young man froze. He stood there momentarily.

"P…Please spread-"

"Though I'm sure your brother gets a better deal on the west side. He was probably glad to move out of 1874 N. Thrush Street."

Hank's face began to pale. He went silent.

"Be honest with me, Hank." Crane's voice had lowered considerably. "I always hated it when my patients weren't honest with me. So I stimulated them to be more honest. Do you want me to make you an honest man, Hank?"

Suddenly, his voice turned dark, almost like a croaking whisper.

"…Or do you want me to come to your parents' house tonight and slip a little something into your mother's night cap, and watch as she stabs her own eyes out in order to get rid of the spiders she thinks are crawling behind them? You ever hear what a _real_ scream sounds like, Hank? Do you want me to show you…?"

Abruptly, a hand came down and clamped on Hank's shoulder. In spite of himself…he jumped. He snapped his head over to the side, suddenly seeing Zachary there. For a moment, he didn't even recognize him. His wits only seemed to slowly come back to him. That was shocking. For a moment…the whole world had been nothing more than Dr. Crane in his cell talking to him, making those threats as he seemed to mutate into a monster.

However, Hank didn't know the half of it. Although he would believe this for some time to come, there was no "fear toxin" involved in what just happened. Crane just had the uncanny ability to get into your head like a parasitic maggot and start eating what he found.

At any rate, Zachary's stern look snapped him back to reality.

"You're done." He simply stated.

Hank blinked a few times. He was still hearing what Crane said running through his head. "I…I…"

"You're not fired, but you're done for today. And tomorrow. You get two days off. You're not working with Crane again for a year. Get home and clear your head. Now."

The young man blinked again. He suddenly swallowed, and realized he had been holding his breath. His body and mind were still snapping out of it. But at once, his logic started to work again…and he realized what he had just heard. At that moment, any confidence he had around Crane was destroyed. Now he was more terrified of him than anyone else in the entire facility.

Without a word, not even able to say "thanks", Hank turned and began to walk down the hall.

It took everything he had not to run like a madman.

* * *

_August 20__th_

_I'm still here, and mom and dad are coming home. I'm telling them we're moving, though…and from now on I'm not letting anyone in Arkham know where to. I'm using a P.O. Box._

_I'm not sure whether to feel like an idiot or a practical person. They did an investigation. Crane bribed one of the new orderlies $5,000 to give copies of our applications to him. Dr. Coben said he was just messing around "like the patients tend to do". Zachary tells me he was turning me into his own new "patient", wanting to see how far he could drive me before he used his next batch of contraband fear toxin to push me over the edge. Even him being "good" for three days was to make me second guess myself at this point, think I had slipped up and given him a crucial piece of information. He said he's seen it before, and he's learned to pick up on it. _

_He also said I need to make a choice…quit now or continue with training as soon as I come back exactly the same way as before, minus Crane. I'll be finishing my Level E training on Jervis Tetch, who arrived two weeks ago. Zachary said it's for my own good…that I need to finish up on someone else who has a habit of giving people royal mindfucks. However, he said it's also still relatively safe. Tetch has been able to build stuff while in Arkham but the miniature components typically take him a minimum of four weeks. He also said he's been in a "good mood", lately, and has been "behaving himself" rather well. _

_I've thought about it most of the day, now that the nightmare has passed, and I've decided to stay on. I really don't have a choice. This was the only thing I could get to enhance my resume, and I can see now how much of an enhancement it will be if I can get through this. Things are getting worse, but in ten more months… I've gone through my life for so long without accomplishing anything, and today I'm having to tell my parents to move after everything else they've done for me. It'll be for nothing if I quit now._

_I'll give it another month…see where I am then._

* * *

_October 18__th_

_Been a while since I've posted anything in here. For a while, I just had to keep my head every day, and I didn't think much of any more entries. However, I think I've adjusted rather well._

_I'm one of the "final four" now of the original eight of us that got hired. Naturally, they fired the bastard who took the bribe from Crane. Since then, I've been working all over, only now I'm a full member of the orderly team for Level E as well as the rest of the blocks. Finishing the training wasn't bad. Tetch didn't cause much trouble. He actually smiled and said hello on the first day. However, I learned my lesson with Crane. I stuck to the 'Essential Three Phrases'. Haven't had any problems since._

_The rest of the levels are cut and dry now. I'd rather deal with the screaming and piss all day if I could. Nothing compares to Level E. After almost two months, I still get nervous every time I walk in there. I can feel my heart pounding. I try not to look at any of the cells to this day. I feel like a kid who will see the boogeyman if he does. Every so often I see Crane while I'm in there. I don't say a word…I try not to look at him. However, he looks right back at me the whole time. It's weird. I keep hearing that one phrase he said to me on the first day: "I think you'd fit right in."_

_He must be crazy, because I can't stand that place. I find new reasons to hate it every day. Sometimes it's the damn stench in some of the cells. Sometimes it's the mold on some of the walls. Sometimes it's just one extra lump of shit I have to clean up. Most of all, I always leave it feeling dirty. Like one of those cooks that works at a greasepit…they come home just feeling filthy. Only I still feel dirty after showering._

_I'm still having a hard time getting up. The place just drains me. I'm still making car payments, and I got an early raise so I'm able to pay my parents some rent…but I don't go out anymore. I just never feel like it. I have to work myself up to see a movie, and I always pay for it by the time I get back to the Asylum. I'm literally counting the days now, and it's making me swear to see I still have months to go. Meanwhile, my social life is at an all time low and I don't even think about dating anymore…_

_Actually, that probably wasn't such a bad thing today. I did receive a little bit of a "jolt" that helped me realize some of the stuff Zachary has been drilling into me._

* * *

Hank gave the three customary knocks.

"Ms. Isley, it's time for today's therapy session."

Hank was used to this by now. In the past two months, he had routinely transported Harleen Quinzell to two therapy sessions a day, brought a combination of the Wall Street Journal and the local racing forms to Harvey Dent, checked consumption of medication for Maxie Zeus (you couldn't get the guy to take an aspirin without forcing it down his throat), and had to clean up food messes when Arnold Wesker, or rather his damn puppet, went on a hunger strike. Although they still scared the life out of him every time, there was getting to be some "familiarity" to everything.

But Pamela Lillian Isley…she was something else.

She got to experience both the psychiatric side of Arkham as well as the intensive security measures normally applied to people like Waylon Jones and Basil Karlo. Her cell was specially built right into the side of Arkham from a converted storeroom. The walls of the cell were sealed by vacuums and, unlike the other inmates, the viewing window into her cell was glass. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, her room's air was being filtered and recycled, filtering out the pheromones she was constantly producing. But even so, Hank and the two guards with him were wearing respirators and had rubber gloves on.

Procedures were different for her too. The two guards with him today were both female. That didn't necessarily provide a surefire cure against the pheromones, so they kept wearing masks anyway as a precaution. Isley had a window in her room that let in sunlight periodically. It had been shut for the six hours leading up to her therapy session and she had been forced to take a sodium tablet an hour ago. As a result, looking into the cell, she wasn't "at her best". She looked slightly hung over as she slowly walked over and assumed the neutral position.

With the possible exception of Crane, Hank hated Isley more than the others. That was because the bitch wasn't even human. She was a genocidal maniac who didn't even bleed properly. She was off-the-scale crazy. But then again, could you even really classify her as crazy since you were thinking of her sanity in terms of her still being a human being, not a plant hybrid like she was? Therapy rarely had an impact on her because she didn't even think "animals" were worth listening too. About the only soft spot she had to anything human was to the occasional female, like Quinzell down the hall. But if you were male? Then you were dead to her the day you stepped on a blade of grass.

She wanted to see him dead before she even knew he existed. That kind of made it hard to like an individual. It was only because he was getting some semblance of professionalism about him that Hank was able to act normally now.

At any rate, Isley assumed the position. Once she placed her hands on her head, she called out behind her. Hank was expecting the worst. He had tended Isley three times now, and she always seemed to say the same things. She'd complain that they were starving her to death in the cell. She'd make some snide comment about how inadequate they were as animals. Occasionally, she'd make a comment that was a combination of seduction and a threat.

However, none of that came out.

"Good morning, Hank." She said, for once, her voice not as sharp as toxin but as sweet as nectar, almost alluring even with her room sealed. "Let's please get over with in a hurry. I'd like to get outside soon. It's such a sunny day…I'd like to see how the flora on the island are doing."

The personality change was almost a 180. It actually gave Hank a moment of pause. He looked into the cell, almost expecting some other comment to be tacked on. However, there was nothing. Isley behaved and patiently waited on her end of the cell. Hank hesitated. After a moment, he went over to the sheet at the door. He pulled it out and looked at it.

Last ventilation check was fine. The patient had taken her medication without incident.

Hank looked back up to her. She was still standing there. After a moment, he reached down to his side and buzzed the radio.

"Security Station?"

"_Yeah?"_

"How does the ventilation system check out on Ms. Isley's cell?"

Pause. _"All green, pardon the pun."_

Hank ignored the joke. "Did she take her medication?"

"_That's affirmative."_

A light giggle came from inside the cell. "What's the matter? Can't a girl behave once in a while?"

Hank stared at her a bit longer. After that, he turned to the radio one more time. "Roger. Thanks for the heads up." After that, the orderly went over to the door and unlocked it. He quickly stood back three feet afterward.

Nothing. Isley didn't move.

"…How are you today, Ms. Isley?"

"I'm doing rather well, Hank. Feeling rather well. It's harvest time, after all. Last big time for me before winter sets in. How are you?"

"…That's nice." Was all Hank answered as he leaned forward and opened the cell, immediately recoiling again.

The air that exited was clean. No mutant plants attempted to burst from the floor to strangle him. Isley didn't even flinch in his direction. Everything was safe and clear. Fifteen seconds passed, and nothing. A bit reluctantly, Hank motioned the guards inside. They immediately went in.

As they went about fully restraining Isley, she turned and gave them pleasant smiles. "And how are you, ladies? Any chance at picking up something at the Farmer's Market? Planted any mums? They really do brighten up a house, you know…"

The guards didn't answer her. The guards, as a rule, never answered any questions. Only the orderlies did, and that was rare. At any rate, she was soon secure, and carried out to the cart. Once there, she was strapped in as she always was before. Now, Hank got a good look at her face. She seemed almost like a different person. Even her normally green tint seemed to be almost a more rosy color, and she seemed to radiate good vibes as well as a pleasant face. However, for once, it wasn't seductive. She seemed to simply be in a good mood.

"Smile a bit, Hank." She said simply to him as the last straps were tightened. "It makes you look cuter."

Hank didn't answer, and he definitely didn't smile. As the guards stepped way, he pulled out a fresh form from the wall and began to fill it out. "Is the patient secure?"

"The patient is secure."

Hank soon began his examination. Isley remained compliant, even moving her head around so he could get a better look at her details. He made a few notations in regard to color, but that was only the time of the year. He looked all over her body and saw nothing else. Nothing out of the ordinary. She was even fully clothed when they pulled her out today, not dressed half-nude like she tended to on some days. After putting on another glove over his first one, he moved through her red hair but found nothing. She was clean, clean in every sense.

The young man couldn't help but give a sigh as he struggled to find something to write down. He looked at her hands twice, but saw nothing. No discolorations, no tint changes…nothing to indicate she had "changed her brand of poison". Nothing at all. He actually scratched his head.

"So…are we good to go?" Isley asked.

Hank frowned again. He looked over his form, but saw no place to register anything. The only thing he could register is that she was being overly nice…which wasn't suspicious in and of itself…right?

However, as Hank continued to think…he remembered what he heard in the orientations. These people weren't nice. They weren't your friends. The only time they were in a good mood was when they were planning something.

Something wasn't right.

He looked down again over her hands. He saw nothing on them…but he wasn't convinced. He stared for a few moments longer, before he turned to his radio. Even as he did…he saw Isley's smile fade a bit.

"Security Station?"

"_Yeah?"_

"This is Dante over at Isley's cell. Can you have Richards run me up a white cloth and some water?"

"_Sure thing. Give me a minute."_

Now, Isley's smile faded all together. "What do you need that for?" She said. "Can we hurry this up? I'm rather hungry."

Not answering her, Hank leaned back, crossed his arms, and waited. In the meantime, Isley only began to look more irate and irritable. She actually made her hands into fists a few times. However, after about a minute, what he requested came. Another orderly carrying a damp white cloth came up to Hank.

"Here you go." He said as he handed it over.

"I'm clean, you idiots." Isley hissed. "Can we just get going? What are you going to do? Wash my face?"

_Now you're starting to sound more like the Isley I know…_ Was the only thing Hank thought in response. He moved down over to Isley's hand. For a brief moment, as he reached for it with the double gloves, her hands shrank back, making a fist. However, after a moment longer, she let out a sigh and let her fingers go loose again. Hank moved to the fingertips and began to wipe them with the cloth.

After a moment, he pulled the cloth back and looked at it. There was a bit of green staining on it.

Richards gave a shrug on spotting it. "That's nothing to worry about. She always gives a bit of that off."

Hank, however, wasn't convinced. They told him the hands gave them away…and Isley didn't want him looking at them. And so, he rubbed a bit more against the fingers. He pulled the cloth away a second time. This time, Richards and the guards reacted.

There was a purple stain on the cloth.

Hank held up Isley's hand next. A moment before she jerked it out of his grasp, he got a good look at the fingertips. Something purple was on them under the nails, something masked by what looked like green tone from her own body…something that had been hidden until now. Still holding the cloth, Hank got up and looked to Richards.

"I think we're going to need a plastic bag for this cloth and to send it to the labs. Also, tell the security station to contact Dr. Whistler."

* * *

_We still don't know if Isley made it herself or made it through contraband, but somehow she had a new toxin that was absorbed through the skin. Apparently, her therapist had been in the habit of getting neck rubs from her. Security theorized that today she was going to work it into his skin. As for whether it would have poisoned him or put him under her "spell" or in her "thrall" or whatever…that's for the lab guys to figure out. Apparently, this therapist is getting disciplinary action now…trying to see whether he was committing an ethical violation with her or if she somehow took control of his mind. I don't envy the bastard. He has a wife and two kids and I'm expecting to hear them separate any day now._

_Dr. Coben and the Head Administrator gave me a commendation for this. Zachary and even Ralph said I had a good eye and even Officer Cash gave me a congratulations as I walked around. It felt good…and I know it will look good on my resume…but it didn't last. That damn island seems to suck the joy out of everything. By the time Arnold Wesker's damn dummy spat his beef stew in my face and Wesker "apologized on Mr. Scarface's behalf" for the tenth time in a week, I was back into my old bad mood._

_Counting the month for the background check, which, praise the Lord, counts as part of the time I've been employed here, I've still got eight months left. I try to tell myself that's not a lot…but a part of my brain keeps telling me I'm not even halfway through it yet…_

* * *

_December 3__rd_

_Been a while since another update. I'm finally out of my parents' apartment and in my own. I think they were almost glad to see me go, especially after telling them to move once. That was a hassle and a half and I don't think dad ever forgave me for it. I tried to remind them a couple times that the psychos knew the address of where they lived, but that only made them angrier at me, as if I had given it out on purpose to them. Needless to say, we haven't really talked since then. Our phone calls are about down to five minutes. Maybe we can change that when the holidays get here._

_The only thing to like about this apartment is that it's my own. It's a damn studio, it's in a bad part of the city, it's old, stained on the walls, and its smell reminds me of Arkham. Still, it would be bearable, if it wasn't for the damn neighbor's dog across the hall. Every time _anyone_ moves around in the floor above or below, he starts barking his head off. I've already told the landlord to do something about it, but I think it's his cousin, so that's pissing in the wind…_

_It's funny. I didn't expect Arkham Asylum to have its own "terminology" for everything when I got there. I thought this job would be more "routine". But in addition to all of the codes, there's a lot of terms I've have to learn while I'm here as part of the vernacular. _

_One of them was almost applied to me during the night shift last night during our weekly poker game. To be honest, I'm a little scared. A couple months ago I would have told these people they were imagining things. But things haven't been getting better. Rather than getting used to the inmates, they're getting to me more. By now, a lot of them know what they have to do to piss me off just like I've learned a lot of their favorite things and pet peeves. We're studying each other now, and unfortunately they have more experience. Every time I come up to Arkham, the walls seem a little higher, the smells a bit stronger, the rust a little more widespread, the shadows a little darker…_

_Then again, we're all a bit on edge now. After all, we heard about our "early Christmas present" right after it happened…_

* * *

Even now, Hank didn't think of himself as much of a gambler, even if he always made high wagers and lost fairly often at this weekly card game. It didn't really matter anymore. While he had been tight on cash before the raise, he now spent almost none of his disposable income on entertainment value, so he wasn't ending up behind. Essentially, he only paid for his new studio apartment over on the south end and his car. Other than that, most of his time and energy was spent right here at Arkham. So why not spend his entertainment expenses too?

The orderlies were at the security station at the moment, enjoying the quietness for the time being. It was about 12 AM, and almost all of the inmates were asleep, and the few that weren't were keeping quiet. There wasn't much for an orderly to do at this point other than assist in sedations or late-night concerns to the injured patients if necessary. Most of it was just watch duty. That said, Arkham Asylum was rather full at the moment, and so the standard staff on call had expanded. Rather than the usual four-man orderly team, there were eight people tonight. However, slow periods like this meant there was plenty of time for a few rounds of cards.

Hank's group was off duty at the moment, and was seated at a card table with folding chairs in the security station. It had ended up being an interesting bit of work scheduling tonight. He was not only sitting next to Zachary at the moment, but Ralph was on duty, along with Travis Healy, another one of the new employees from when Hank had been hired. He was on the job at the moment too, however.

It was Zachary's turn to deal, and he was shuffling. They were all being a bit quiet. It wasn't due to the illicit nature of their activity. Games were alright, but a lot of the stuffed shirts in administration would give you Hell for gambling. However, Hank thought they needed to lighten up, as did most of the other orderlies. This was Gotham City, for crying out loud. If a weekly poker game was the worst of your troubles, you were an O.K. guy. Still, there was no need to try and make enough noise to awaken some ornery inmate. They'd make you pay for it but good.

Zachary began to deal the cards. "…Anyone check out that game by the Wildcats last night?"

The one across from Hank snorted. "Screw the Wildcats. They're done this year."

"What are you talking about? They still have a shot at the division championship."

"Yeah, and I have a shot at winning the lottery."

"Either of you been paying attention to the Blades?" The one to Hank's right said.

"Oh, come on man. You're not going to start that again, are you?"

"It's football season."

"It's also hockey season."

"No one gives a damn about hockey anymore."

"They should. For one thing the beer is twice as good at the arena. Second, they could get the Stanley Cup. They're on fire this season."

"I only watch hockey for one reason. To laugh my ass off when a fight breaks out."

"I do boxing for that. I'm drawing four. Shit, Zack, you can't deal worth crap."

"Hey, I'm not complaining about the hand I've got."

"Me neither. I'll take one. The Knights, on the other hand… Oh man, if only Rutteger hadn't torn that ligament we'd have _that_ division in the bag."

"I'll drink to that."

"Oh, no argument here."

"…Just out of curiosity, you guys…what do you think of Dr. Raj's latest round of treatment?"

The table went silent. In a moment, all talk an idle banter had ceased. Instead, the three other players looked to the one who had finally spoken, not getting in on anything else. All eyes were soon on Hank. He, however, didn't seem to notice at first. He was arranging his own hand. They stared for a bit longer, before they all looked back to their own hands. However, there was a tension on the air now. It was as if Hank had just said something taboo.

Zachary, the one who was the most normal out of the three, simply rearranged his own hand a bit. "I don't think about it, Hank." He finally stated, keeping his eyes on his hand. "It's not my job to think about how they're treating the patients. I just maintain them."

Hank looked up from his hand. He looked around the table, and noticed that things had gotten quiet in a hurry, and that everyone was looking down to their hands. He paused momentarily, but then looked back to his own hand.

"I know that…but, I mean…don't you get a little sick of it, sometimes? I mean, we know these guys better than half of these damn doctors. Does it make you kind of roll your eyes when you hear that they've got some new doctor in who wants us to take them jogging outside everyday? I mean, we're not a social club. Am I right or not?"

The two other orderlies didn't respond. Zachary, on his part, gave a mild shrug. "That may be, but we don't really get much say in the matter. Doesn't really pay to get fed up with it. Are you planning on staying with your hand or drawing?" He asked as he took up a cup of coffee he had for himself to take a sip.

Hank pulled two cards out of his hand and put them face down, then drew two, but then continued. "I'm just saying… Half the shit these people have done and they want us to take them jogging, do these favors for them… I mean, it's a joke. They should probably listen to that one doctor…what was his name… Dr. Otomo? The one who thought about bringing back convulsive therapy? I mean," Here, Hank snickered a bit. "Who cares if it doesn't work or not? Maybe if they knew they were going to get fried every time they came back here, they'd be a little less eager to-"

A loud thunk rang out through the security station as Zachary slammed his cup back down on the table with extra force, shaking the chips and dollar bills that were on it. The noise caused the younger orderlies to all snap their heads up and look to him, including Hank. He soon saw the head orderly giving him a dark stare.

"…Listen, man." He stated flatly and firmly. "You need to stop thinking about this shit right now. I mean it. You keep this up, you're making me think you're going to 'Go Amadeus' on me."

Hank blinked back in response, and furrowed his brow. "…What does that mean?"

Zachary didn't answer right away. His sternness faded a bit, giving rise to unease. He turned and looked to the other two at the table. They looked back at him uncomfortably, but stayed silent as well. All of this soon began to unnerve Hank as well. Putting his hand down, he looked more closely to Zachary.

"What does it mean?"

Zachary turned back to him. After pausing a moment, he began to explain.

"New employees leave Arkham for a lot of reasons. Out of ten people, five of them do it because they're scared. Two of them do it because they're corrupt or inept. One of them does it because he ends up being a poor bastard who gets in the way of a patient's escape attempt. And, of course, there's the one who stays on and turns out alright. As for the tenth one…this place finally gets to them. They can't take it anymore. Maybe it's the buildings…maybe it's the inmates…maybe it's the thankless labor for a pitiful salary…but one day, they just snap.

"The administration hates it, but we call it 'Going Amadeus', because it's what happened to the guy who founded the place. Almost always…it's a patient that sets them off. And why not? This is Gotham City. We've got all sorts of types running around whose job it is to beat these people to a pulp and then ship what's left out to us. Maybe they think they're the same thing. Maybe that's all that makes sense to them one day. Maybe all of the sudden, it just clicks that this is what everything was building to. That they were put in this position so that they could be the one to assassinate Hugo Strange or Victor Zsasz or Edward Nigma and make the world a better place. But they're always out of their league. These people are used to the police and gang leaders trying to kill them on a daily basis. No guard or orderly going through a mental breakdown is going to be the one to end them. Instead…they end up being just another patient here…having to live with the rest of the wild animals."

There was a moment of silence in the room afterward. Hank looked to Zachary, then looked to the other two. They didn't meet his gaze like Zachary did at first. They only looked up after a moment, and then stared at Hank. The young man stared back, looking at them, and then Zachary again. He couldn't believe it…they actually thought he was going to turn into one of the inmates in here. That was the _last_ thing on his mind. He couldn't stand the place. Why would he want to be locked up in it? He couldn't believe this stuff. As a result, he shook his head and began to look back to the game. He almost looked to Zachary to tell him to draw.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"

Ralph's voice suddenly echoed up from the hall, considerably louder than how the others had been talking until now, and the tirade was enough to make everyone forget Hank and turn to him. They were just in time to see the head orderly move halfway through the station entrance with a sore look on his face. However, even as he leaned inside, farther down the hall, a female's voice began to loudly cry out and cheer, loud enough to echo through the entire penitentiary.

Hank looked up at that and angrily threw down his cards. "Damnit, that's Quinzell, isn't it?"

"…It sure as Hell is." One orderly nearby answered.

"Well, damnit, isn't someone going to try and shut her up?" Hank retorted, spinning to the others. "She's going to wake up the entire block!"

However, on looking back to the others, he paused again. Their faces were unusual again. They suddenly had tired looks on them, but also dark and fearful ones. Even Zachary seemed a bit fearful as he sat there. He rubbed his head uneasily and seemed to be cursing under his breath.

Hank, confused…and unnerved by all this, looked back to Ralph. His face was angry as always too, but he also had a dark look on it as he stared at Hank.

"Well, rookie…seems like you're the only one who doesn't get that the shit is about to hit the fan. For the record, you can't shut Quinzell up at a time like this. We're just going to have to deal with this entire block throwing a fit for the rest of the night."

The young man didn't like how darkly Ralph said this. In many ways, it was worse than before when Zachary and the others were looking at him. Ralph, meanwhile, grit his teeth a bit as he looked squarely at Hank.

"'Conrad Veidt' arrived 8 minutes ago and he's on his way here."

* * *

_This was a code word I managed to pick up. I don't know shit about Hollywood, but Conrad Veidt used to be an actor who did a role in this really old movie called: "The Man Who Laughed". Since no one knows _his_ real name, that's the code word that all the orderlies in Arkham Asylum use for him. And yeah, I guess I've bought in to the old Arkham superstitions, because I don't use his "name" any more than the others do. As far as I'm concerned, his name is Conrad Veidt._

_I haven't quite hit the six month mark yet, but even if I didn't hear the horror stories once in a while from the other orderlies I would have nearly pissed my pants back in that security station. I used to have nightmares about having to watch this guy when I first took the job. I mean…there really isn't any other way to put it. Everyone's afraid of this guy or at least is afraid and doesn't show it. We all know he treats this place like a revolving door. At least with the others, there's the slightest, remotest hope that this time they aren't going to be able to get out. It might just be a coin in a well, but it's there. Not with him. We all know he's going to bust out of here. Hell, _I_ know he's going to get out of here and I've only been here less than six months. The question is…when and how? Does he just slip out one night, or does he cut his way through as many of us as he can?_

_Oh shit…I can still remember the file photo of that one guy they say he gassed 18 months ago when he busted out last…_

_I'm not going to sleep tonight either._

* * *

_January 11__th_

_Now is the winter of our discontent._

_I've been sitting here an hour trying to get started writing. The damn dog downstairs has been barking its head off again and I've heard everything through the paper thin walls. I tried banging on the floor to get that guy's attention to shut it up, but that only makes it bark more. And the fucking landlord doesn't even let me keep a damn hermit crab, yet he lets his cousin keep that stupid yip dog…_

_Mr. Veidt was quiet the first night, probably because he was just getting dropped off personally by the Bat. Heh…that was my one chance to see the Bat in person, and there I was, holed up in the Security Station getting lectured by Zachary for thinking too hard. At any rate, he was missing two teeth, shot twice, had two broken fingers, and his throat had nearly been smashed in by what the docs presumed was a rather powerful fist. This one guard, McMurphy, he came to us later that night as we tried to sedate the worst of the howling inmates, laughing at the whole thing. He said he was lying half-dead in the cart when they dragged him in, struggling to laugh and going into a coughing fit each time. "Serves the bastard right", he kept saying. None of us could really disagree with him, but after that "talk" I kept quiet._

_That's all changed now._

_The guy must have had more bones broken than Evel Knievel over the years, and yet he still bounces back every time. In two weeks, I found myself having to get used to a new noise…periodic bouts of his damn, high-pitched laugh. He'll do it at all hours and all times, usually during quiet periods, just to give us Hell. Usually it stirs up the other inmates, but even if it doesn't the orderlies go running to see if he did something. He hasn't yet, but it always takes them everything they got not to shut him up. He's still in casts but he's up and walking around, I hear._

_I haven't seen him yet, and if I have my way I never will. Ralph told me this guy is not for "rookies". He wouldn't even think of assigning me to him unless I had been there three years. A small part of me wants to actually go see him…preferably when he's asleep. I mean, how many people can say they got that close to him and lived to tell about it? But then I snap out of it and realize I'd rather go up to a starving tiger draped in steaks. _

_He's a mean bastard, from what I hear, though I suppose that goes without saying. Oh, he always thinks it's funny, but he lives to give us a hard time, because he knows he can. If the city hasn't so much as threatened him with a cell in Blackgate in over 15 years, they're not going to start now. He gets away with murder both inside and out of Arkham. Well…that's not to say he's actually killed anyone in the past month in here, but he's already forced his current therapist to take a sabbatical and five different orderlies to call off from working with him. He'll hide in his cell to get the guards to come in, thinking he busted out, only to pop out and yell "surprise" before laughing his head off for an hour. He'll pretend to be sedated on the latest medicines made specifically for his metabolism only to pop up and kiss the orderlies on the lips. He eats his breakfast only to vomit it up on himself after they have him strapped in, forcing them to unfasten him, clean him up, clean the equipment up, and then try again…usually with the same result._

_But even if I'm not the one who has to deal with it, I'm still feeling it. Arkham was getting worse to me every day I came in, but with him here, everything's even worse. The other inmates act up. Quinzell has started biting. The real crazies start laughing along with him all night long, like some sort of demented chorus in the round. Other patients, however, do a lot worse…_

_This one Olephant guy…he threw such a violent fit during one of Veidt's 12 hour laughing sprees that he stuck his head through the bars on his window and broke his own neck. And this was on my shift. That's the first time ever I had to assist in cleaning up a dead body. I almost wanted to vomit myself. I wondered if it would be the last. Any day, I expected to walk in on the island and get the report that Veidt had finally done someone in as another one of his little practical jokes._

_But I spend the rest of my time there wondering if it could be me. After today's chat, I started to wonder a bit more than before…_

* * *

It was a bitterly cold day, not helped at all by the fact that they were located on a small island in Gotham Harbor and had to deal with the coldness of the ocean as well as the biting wind. It was gray out and light snow was falling, but was whipped around violently by the wind. You could get frostbite really easily on a day like this. Even wearing the standard-issue Velcro-strapped coats, which offered about as much extra protection as a cotton shirt anyway, all of the orderlies ran the patients to and from the treatment buildings as fast as they could. Honestly, the straight jackets must have offered more protection, because the patients never seemed to mind that much. To anyone else, they'd never stay out here.

However, Hank found himself standing outside the main building of the Penitentiary anyway. It was his lunch break, and he was spending the last five minutes of it in some fresh air. It might have been biting and cold, but it wasn't the air inside. As the months had gone by, he almost felt like it clung to his throat, like London fog. The stench of rot and mold and age and excrement just seemed to sit in his nostrils and lungs. He actually would blow his nose a few times whenever he got off duty to try and get rid of it…

At any rate, he could take a bit of cold weather.

The door behind him suddenly opened with another rusty squeak. Hank turned behind and spotted Zachary coming out, carrying a pack of cigarettes. He was tapping the pack at the moment, but he also looked up to Hank as he exited.

"Care for one?"

Hank shook his head. "I don't smoke."

"Good thinking." Zachary answered as he finished tapping and pulled one out. He soon moved up to Hank. Standing next to him, both of them looked out over Gotham Harbor. The day was so gray they could make out a lot of details on the skyline, including the big logo for Wayne Enterprises and a somewhat smaller one for LexCorp's main building in Gotham.

Zachary let out a sigh and puffed a few times. Hank, after a few moments, looked to him from the side. He noticed something. Zachary was always pretty basic, but he seemed a bit lower today. It looked almost like a guy who had gotten some really bad news, but news he had been expecting for a while. He took another drag, and after exhaling smoke along with his misty breath, he spoke up.

"…I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to have to ask you to pick up another couple shifts, if you can."

Hank turned fully to him. A moment later, he frowned. "I'm already working full time this week."

"I know. You'd have to double down. There wouldn't be enough time for you to go home. But that's alright, we keep cots in the back. Clean ones…not the ones that patients use. You can sleep there. I'll even give you free meals from the cafeteria."

The young man sighed. "I can't do that. I'd be here for five shifts in a row. I'd practically be living here for three days. I can barely stomach staying here on a 12 hour shift."

"You'd really be doing us all a favor." Zachary answered as he took a drag. "And look, I know this is unloading on you, but I don't really have a luxury at this moment of too many people."

"Well, why isn't Travis doing it? Isn't it his week to work?"

Zachary didn't answer that right away. He raised his cigarette and took another long drag, and exhaled the smoke again.

"I mean, it's his week to work, isn't it?"

Zachary let out a small sigh. "…It would be if he didn't have a pressing family event to go to."

"And what would that be?" Hank almost snapped back.

"His funeral."

Hank's anger immediately vanished. His hostility faded, and his face became blank. As for Zachary, he took another puff from his cigarette, and let out a tired sigh as he bowed his head a bit.

"Last night on his shift he was going to take Dent to get a wash. Dent wanted a coin for some reason. Who knows? Maybe he was trying to decide whether to go along with it or spit in his face. Anyway, his current therapist said he doesn't get his coin for any reason…trying to break him of the habit, I guess." Zachary snorted at the thought. "He started going frantic. The guards had to hold him down. Travis was told to bring the sedative. He brought it, but he got too close to Dent before waiting for the doctor to administer the shot. Dent suddenly broke free and slugged him. Hit him just the right way to knock his head into the concrete wall and start a brain hemorrhage." He took another drag and exhaled. "I just got the call twenty minutes ago from Central Hospital. They got him there as fast as they could, but it was too late."

Hank was frozen for a moment. It had finally happened. One of the personnel members had died while he worked there. He had been worried about it happening for months, but now it finally came. What more…it was one of his group. Now there were only three of them left: himself, Riker, and Allen.

Zachary let out another sigh. "At least it was an accident this time. I know that's cold comfort, but it beats a murder. Of course, now it can't get on Dent's record…"

Hank shook himself out of this, and looked to Zachary more intently. His face actually grew irritable. "Did you know about this since last night?"

Zachary took another drag and nodded.

"When the hell were you planning on telling me?" Hank almost snapped back.

A cloud of smoke puffed out. "I didn't need it interfering with your job or messing up your own head." He simply answered.

Hank scoffed. "I don't believe you." He retorted. "You've been mentoring the guy for seven months. You make it sound like your coffee was burned."

Zachary sighed yet again. "It's not going to help the poor bastard now. It's not like I didn't say a prayer for him when they carted him off to the hospital…"

"And you grimaced maybe once when Olephant snapped his neck in the bars."

Zachary shrugged. "You see a lot of things when you work here ten years…" He answered quietly.

"Cut that bullshit." Hank shot back. "You talk about me going nuts. You're not even batting an eye that Travis got murdered last night."

Zachary frowned and turned to glare at Hank. Taking one last drag from his cigarette, he threw it down on the slush-covered step and crushed it.

"What the hell do you want me to do, Hank? Break down crying? Keep my head hanging low? Take the day off so I can go drink away in the bar? This is _fucking Arkham Asylum_. You know, you may not want to know the truth about this, but the day I saw the eight of you come in to orientation I knew this was going to happen to at least one of you before the year was out."

Hank froze again on hearing that. His eyes widened slightly. Zachary, however, frowned.

"Don't give me that damn 'deer-in-the-headlights' look. What did you want me to do? Say, 'Take a good look around you, boys, because in a year's time one of you is going to be in a grave'? I hate to wake you up to the facts of life but you're taking a chance ever time you punch your damn time card in, and you should be thanking God at the moment that Travis went out as quiet as he did. You haven't been here a full year yet. You haven't seen the shit that some of these people can do. You've seen photos and heard stories. You've never had to take a mop out to clean up the mess Jones has left behind, knowing it came out of someone you worked with that same night. You've never had to break a guy's arm to get it to sit down because rigor mortis set in by the time you find your poker buddy in the position Zsasz left them in. You've never seen some guy who wanted you at his wedding with his face twisted into some sickening grin, and they have to give him a closed-casket funeral because the damn mortician can't get it off of him even when he starts chopping the muscles."

The young man stared back blankly at that for a moment. It took him a few seconds to find his voice. However, when he did, he was only quieter, but still firm.

"Then why haven't you quit?"

"Because like it or not, and as corny as it sounds, I'm needed here." Zachary immediately retorted. "And so is every last damn orderly in here that refuses to take a bribe and manages to keep their head. Whether those damn doctors can cure these sons of bitches or not, someone has to guard them. It can either be us or it can be the deadbeats, the lowlifes, the drunks, the addicts, and everyone else without an ounce of moral fiber in them."

Hank was silent again. So was Zachary. However, it didn't last but a moment. Leaning back, the head orderly gave another exhale as he put his hands in his coat pockets. He looked around a bit, and then turned back to the building.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Hank…but you should get out of here." He said after a moment. "There's two ways people can go in this place. They either rise or they fall. Most people fall. It's a fact of life just as much as the fact that I knew this was going to happen one day. If you stay on…just make sure you don't fall. Because it's always a hard fall."

Without another word, Zachary walked back to the front doors, pulled them open, and walked inside. Hank was left outside alone, staring as he watched him go in.

Later that day, Hank got a disciplinary warning from Ralph for staying outside fifteen minutes after his break was over.

* * *

_At first, I thought Zachary was just talking about what he told me back in December. However, now that I've had a chance to think about it, I wonder if it was something else. Maybe he meant something more. It's not just the place or "Going Amadeus". It's the whole outlook on life._

_It's true. I've stopped going to the movies. I don't even rent anymore. I barely read. I just come home, eat, go to sleep, then get up and head back to Arkham for another shift. It makes no sense at all. I hate that place more than anywhere else in the world. I'd rather be tending a South American superprison than that hellhole. And yet, I can't do anything to take my mind off of it anymore. I've become numb to anything that used to give me joy. I came over for Christmas to my parents' and I stayed for a whole hour before just walking out. I skipped New Year's even though I had the time off. I don't forget to pay my bills, but I can barely motivate myself to pay them. I have to work to shave…_

_It's like that place is sucking the life out of me._

_It's just the same thing…day after day after day. No, not the same thing…the same trend. The shadows always seem to get longer and more monstrous. The mold almost seems to creep on the walls right before my eyes. The rust seems to groan and almost sounds like the damn screaming and moaning. That smell…that godawful, fucking smell… It's almost like it's alive. It's almost like its crawling into my throat and laying eggs and_

_Oh God…what the hell am I writing? _

_I don't even know. Son of a bitch…I sound like some of _them_._

* * *

_March 20__th_

_Three more months… Oh God, I have to keep telling myself that every day. It's like a damn mantra. I just keep chanting it to myself as I force myself to make breakfast, shower, shave, and go to work. It seems like eternity. It seems like a 30 year prison sentence. I have to keep saying I've already crossed the point of no return. I have to keep saying that I'm three-fourths of the way there. Then it will be over. It will be like a bad dream._

_I think I'm losing it. I hate Arkham more than ever. In one week, everything almost went totally to Hell._

_It started when Basil Karlo broke out. One of the crazies escaped from a cell and made a mad run for it. One of the younger officers tried to shoot him. The idiot was using armor-piercing bullets reserved for Jones, and he hit the enclosure Karlo was in. In fifteen seconds, the officer was dead, the crazy was dead, as well as two other guards and one orderly. After that, Karlo tripped the alarm himself, impersonating one of the guards he "melted", and just walked out._

_If that wasn't enough, Crane used the opportunity to gas another orderly and two guards with fear toxin and escape too…so, naturally, I haven't been sleeping that well yet again. I was a zombie myself through most of February. At least the poor bastards _he_ ran into survived. He only managed to make one of his older toxins, I hear, one that we keep antidotes on hand for. But that didn't help me that much. Even though I didn't live at that address anymore, I found myself searching the news daily for reports from the neighborhood, expecting the headline to read that the Crane did something to whoever mom and dad sold the house to…_

_Last but not least, just as things in Arkham were settling down, two weeks ago something happened that scared the shit out of all of us. Ralph was heading to Veidt's cell for transport to his therapist (he's going for a new record this month, having already burned through two…). He obeyed the first part of the procedure. Ralph opened the cell, but during the fifteen second period, Veidt snapped around and suddenly tagged him in the face with a cream pie._

_Ralph's still on medical leave. The doctors are watching him like a hawk in case he put something in the pie that was time released. All the labs come back with nothing other than milk, eggs, sugar, and flour, though, from what I hear. None of that matters, though, and we all know it, especially Veidt. Even if it was harmless, the fact was somehow he got a full-sized genuine cream pie in his cell, and none of us know how it happened. Security cameras were shorting out that day, but we don't know if it was sabotage. We don't know if it was the guards, the orderlies, the laundry people, the janitors…hell, it might have even been an intern or a doctor, for God's sake. The point is…he got it. And if he got that, then it's easy for him to get in a gun or some of his poison. _

_He's been laughing almost non-stop since the incident…laughing at us. He knows what we know, and that just gives him more power over us._

_I'm having a harder and harder time thinking of Arkham Asylum as a miserable, rotten, cesspool of a madhouse staffed by one incompetent administration after another and not thinking of it as something living, breathing, and hungry. I almost feel like I'm being swallowed alive every time I pass under that gate, and each time I leave I almost feel like something is not wanting to spit me back out again. I hate everything about here that's not my co-workers. The patients, the cells, the restraints, the walls, the floors, the ugly shades of paint, even the taste of the water in the fountains._

_But here's the part that scares me to death. I think I'm _addicted_ to it._

_It started when Crane escaped. I started spending more and more time at work, because I knew, as much as I hated it, it was the only place in Gotham City Crane wouldn't be. Then I started to notice it. When I'm here, I act like a human being again. Maybe only an orderly/slave of Arkham Asylum, but still human. I actually talk to people. I still play the card games. I chat at meals. I even show some interest in sports. As much as I hate this place…I feel more _me_ here, if that's even possible…if that even makes any sense._

_The worst part is that I've begun to have new nightmares lately. Nightmares about what my life would be like if I didn't go to Arkham Asylum every day…and, so help me God, I can't help but be afraid._

_I've got to keep it together. Just for three more months. I'm like a man in a marathon. I have to keep pushing myself on knowing the goal isn't much farther._

_Even if there's fewer and fewer racers…in fact, only two of us now._

* * *

Another night shift…and another bad night.

A new patient was in here: a "jack". Yet another term the orderlies and staff at Arkham Asylum picked up. This time, it was after Jack Nicholson, who starred in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". There were a lot of stupid criminals in Gotham City, but none were so stupid as the ones who thought the easiest way to get out of doing time was to cop an insanity plea. They had less of a chance in here than people like Hank.

This was clearly a jack. Oh, he didn't come out and say it, but it was obvious at this point. He was in for stealing cars. _Cars_, for crying out loud. How could they make you insane for stealing valuable things? If you stole pocket lint, that would be something. But somehow, this guy was such a career criminal he managed to get a ruling as a kleptomaniac and now he was in Level F.

Hank and the rest of the orderlies were pretty good at "sniffing out" jacks, but not nearly as good as the inmates. In no time at all, they were "introducing" themselves to him…making him feel "right at home".

As soon as night fell, the jack didn't last one hour before he started bawling. An hour later, he started begging for his mother. Thirty minutes after that he was violently ramming himself against the door and blubbering like a toddler. This, of course, only excited the other patients, and they began to egg him on to try and see if they could push him harder. It got bad tonight. Allen had to sedate the jack himself, but the rest of the block was in such an uproar that they couldn't sedate them all, and they were beginning to spread to the Level M block (although, thankfully, the Level E block was soundproofed since some of the inmates had been capable of driving people to suicide just by talking to them). It didn't help that Riker was supposed to be here tonight, but he hadn't shown up yet so they were shorthanded. Eventually, Cash brought some extra security in and actually maced a few of the more belligerent patients, which scared some of the others into submission. Still, the racket couldn't be silenced all together, and finally everyone had just given up and decided to let the patients burn themselves out.

Hank was exhausted, and he needed a break. As the orderlies and guards had pretty much "thrown in the towel", there was no need to stick to Level F like glue. And so, Hank found an excuse to get a break. Keeping his radio on, in case he was buzzed, he announced to the head orderly that he was headed over to Level E's security station for some coffee. They were brewing a fresh pot in Level F at the moment, but the walk would get him out of Level F. Level E was being quiet tonight. Even Mr. Veidt was asleep. As such, he thought he'd take a walk…at least in the passages that were vacated. He wasn't about to go for a tiptoe past the occupied cells.

Hank arrived at Level E, was buzzed in, and went to get his coffee. Once he had a fresh cup, he began the process of taking the "scenic route" back to Level F. That's how bad tonight was…that he was actually willing to unwind in Level E, if that made any sense. Three months ago, he wouldn't have gone back into Level E to get his wallet if he could avoid it. But he was so stressed out from tonight that he was actually risking it.

Naturally, it wasn't long into the walk before he began to come back to his senses. It didn't matter that the cells were empty. In the dimmed lights for nighttime, they loomed larger and emptier than graves. They were almost like crypts or hollow tombstones, transforming even the empty halls into something out of a haunted house. Even his cloth shoes seemed to echo a bit as he walked along. He tried to push a bit further, telling himself there was only more work when he came back, but he only grew more and more afraid. And each step that took him farther from the security station left him more fearful.

Finally, Hank came to a stop. He looked ahead down the hall still looming in front of him…dark, gothic, and sinister. It truly did look like a madhouse. Not a prison, but a genuine, old-fashioned madhouse. In this light, one couldn't see anything good coming from it…not now, not ever. Seeing it like that, he slowly inhaled and exhaled. His breath seemed so loud it was almost tangible. Hank decided he had seen enough. This was hardly a break…more like a waltz with death. He didn't care if there was more work with crazies. At least he'd be around the other personnel…not looking down a corridor where-

"Hi, Hank."

The voice was twisted and slurred…and also popped out from the cell directly next to Hank. It was small wonder he immediately dropped his coffee cup, spun around, and actually let out a small cry as he jumped. For a brief moment, he thought he'd see Crane wielding a scythe coming up to him to lop off his head.

But the voice wasn't that of Crane, and the individual wasn't him either…although, in short order, Hank wasn't much more comforted.

It was Riker.

He hadn't shaved or bathed. He was in his uniform, but it looked stained and dirty. His badge was lopsided. He was sitting in a bunk in one of the cells. In one hand was a half-full bottle of whiskey, lid off. In the other hand was a Zippo lighter, which he began to flick open and closed…open and closed…open and closed…in a regular, repeating pattern.

He was grinning at Hank, but his eyes were glassy. In the dim light, both his eyes and his teeth shone in the light.

He was clearly drunk…but Hank immediately suspected that wasn't the worst of it.

The young man froze where he was, still in half-jump position. He didn't know what to do or what to say. His three years of coursework and his hours of orientation were forgotten. He just stood there in the silence and the darkness. He didn't even remember that his radio was on.

"…Hey, Riker." Hank finally managed to say after a moment, giving a swallow. He tried to stay calm, but he was failing at it. You could hear the trembling on his voice. "You…you didn't come in today."

Riker kept grinning back, before giving a shrug. "I'm right here, Hank. I just arrived a bit late. You see…I had to do some thinking." Flick, flick went the lighter.

Hank swallowed a bit. He didn't like that grin. He didn't like how the light reflected off of it.

"…I didn't see you punch in. Why don't we go do that now?"

"I've been doing a _lot_ of thinking, Hank…" Flick, flick went the lighter.

The young man paused again.

"The head orderly's looking for you, Riker…we've been through Hell tonight."

Riker raised his liquor bottle and took another swig. When he did, he revealed three gallon containers of gasoline sitting on the cot next to him.

"It's only Hell for us, Hank." He said as he lowered his bottle and wiped some of the excess liquor from his chin. Flick, flick went the lighter. "We're human, Hank. That's why we don't like this circle of Hell. But demons, Hank…they love it. Why shouldn't they? They're demons…and this is Hell. This is where they belong."

Hank moistened his lips.

"Riker…Joe…I'd feel a lot better talking to you if you'd just put the lighter down."

"This is a living Hell, Hank. It's not an asylum…it's the city of Hell." Riker went on. "It doesn't belong here. Nothing that lives and breathes belongs here. These things that scurry about in it don't belong here. I want to send them back. Send them back where they belong. I want God to send a holy fire to consume the island."

Flick, flick went the lighter…faster.

"Joe… This isn't going to help anything…"

"I saw a vision, Hank. I saw a holy fire come down from the sky and make this dark place radiant…"

Flick, flick, flick.

"Joe…for the love of God, put the lighter down… You're drunk…you don't know what you're doing…"

"Shining so bright…so bright… You almost never imagined it was once so dark…"

Flick-flick-flick-flick.

Hank swallowed, beginning to reach his hand out. He opened his mouth to speak again…when a hand suddenly was put on his shoulder.

The young man turned, and saw Zachary standing behind him. Two guards were with him, both of them having their tasers out. Zachary gave him a firm look, the same look he did back with Crane.

"Get back to the station, Hank."

Hank swallowed once, but then did as he was told. He didn't want to be there any more than he did the day with Crane. He didn't even nod. He simply broke aside and began to walk back. He didn't even give a back look to it. As he did, he only slowly began to realize how they knew how to find him. His conversation with Riker had been going longer than he thought. They had enough time to hear and respond over Hank's active radio.

As he walked back, he soon heard Zachary's calm, measured voice behind him.

"Joe…here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to count to three. On the count of one, you put down the liquor bottle. On the count of two, you put down the lighter. On the count of three, you get up and you walk out of that cell. You understand?"

Silence…save for the flicking. Hank kept walking.

"Do you understand, Joe?"

More flicking. Though he was pretty far away now, Hank was beginning to sweat. Still no answer.

"One."

Hank kept walking. The flicking, however, stopped.

"Joe…Joe, don't do it! _Joe_-"

Hank was too far away to feel it…but he still heard the fireball erupt, and dove down to the ground for fear that this slice of Hell finally got flames.

* * *

_It wasn't like the movies, where if you light a candle in a car is blows up. It just kind of spread in a confined space. Only one of the gas cans even went off, but it was enough to turn that cell into a fireball for four seconds. Four seconds was how long it took to operate the cell's automatic extinguishant. Thank God this happened inside a cell on Level E. They're used to people lighting fires that can't be put out by sprinkler systems. In that time, Riker got third degree burns over 50% of his body. He's already being charged with arson, assuming he ever wakes up._

_If he does, he'll most likely be declared insane…and he'll end up in here._

_Hearing that news from Zachary almost made me want to visit Riker in the hospital and clamp a pillow over his face myself. I thought Travis was a tragedy…but no. Travis died a man. Arkham didn't turn him into one of its own. In a way, I'm indebted to Riker. This news is like throwing cold water on my face. It's showing me what'll happen to me if I don't apply every spare moment I have to thinking clearly. I'm going to force myself to go to a bar and see a live band tonight. Deep down inside I don't want to, but fuck that. I'm going anyway. If I don't make a conscious effort to stay "human", this place might change me just like it did Riker._

_I've got to watch my thinking too. The dog downstairs is barking its head off again, and lately I can't hear it bark without seeing images of kibble soaked in antifreeze._

* * *

_May 17__th_

_Four more weeks. Praise the Lord, four more weeks is all._

_I feel like I'm finally in the stretch. It's taken everything I've had over the past two months, but I've managed to keep going. It's down to just Allen and me, and I think we might just beat the odds and have us both make it._

_I've had to force myself to do it, but I'm actually becoming more "normal" again. I called big bro and mom and dad and apologized for the holidays. We actually had a nice dinner last night, celebrating my four weeks left. That's right…I actually went to a nice restaurant. I actually bought the clothes to look nice for it. I'm living on my own and the car is over half paid for. I've been so stingy in my own little "craziness" that even with my small salary I'll have enough money to pay for the last two semesters of college. I even have enough left over so I can keep the apartment and the car with just working some job at the college food court._

_I'm actually seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. For once, it looks as if things may be on the up and up for me. Even Zachary said, so long as I don't get lax and nothing bad pops up, I'm pretty much "home free". Hell, I can submit my resignation in two weeks. Then I walk away with the seal of approval from Arkham Asylum, a place where even the hardiest psychiatrists and security guards in the world fear to tread._

_Even that stupid dog's yapping seems to be cheering me on._

* * *

The radio at Hank's side beeped. He immediately turned down to it and pressed the button. "What's the problem? I'm just about to run over to the cafeteria to bring in lunch."

"_Yeah, I know." _The voice on the other end said. _"Could you head by the supply closet first, though? The bathroom's all out of TP."_

Hank let out a small sigh. "…Sure. Give me about three minutes."

Right before making one turn at the junction, Hank went on ahead instead, heading toward Level E's supply closet, which wasn't too far from the security station. As always, passing by the rows of cells, he looked forward and not to either side. Lately, his mood had improved. While he had never stopped being nervous walking down past all of the patients, he was feeling so well that even they couldn't bring him down at the moment. All of the morning transits were over. After delivering lunch, it would be pretty calm. The doctors had canceled afternoon sessions in order to attend their monthly seminars. It looked to be an easy day.

After crossing through a few more of the halls, he finally came to one last one. A guard was far at the end of the hall, but other than that it was empty. Soon it was completely so save for Hank as the guard turned a corner and left him alone. However, he wasn't too nervous. Arkham was never a "safe" place, but the sun was up and shining through the windows, almost making the place look like a dank prison rather than a slice of Hell. But so long as the patients were being quiet, he didn't really care.

Finally, he reached the supply closet door. There were cleaners in there, so it was kept under lock and key at all times. However, Hank had the keys at the moment. He had just gotten back from testing the back entrance to make sure no one had been using it, a periodic check they called on orderlies to make a few times a week. Getting out the keys, he moved along the ring, shuffling through a few of them, before finding the desired key. Grasping it firmly, he inserted it into the lock and gave a turn…

The sudden explosion rang down every corridor of the block, echoing and booming so loud that it was impossible to tell which direction it came from initially. Hank, hardly knowing if the blast was in front or behind him, instinctively shrank to the floor. In moments…everything went from being a calm day to chaos. Before he even had a chance to get to his feet, the patients began to go crazy. Like a rock thrown at a hornet's nest, they immediately began to hoot and holler and throw a mad fit inside their cells. But that was only the start. Smaller eruptions were heard overhead before the sprinkler systems suddenly went off. A steady stream of water was soon raining down on Hank. The fire alarm began to blare afterward. Finally, the same guard who turned the corner abruptly reappeared, beginning to run back.

Hank snapped around in shock. He was almost disorientated from everything that happened. However, he soon heard even more chaos from down the hallway. The water falling on his radio began to make it spark and shock him, causing him to wince. He quickly pulled the earpiece off of his head, even as his senses began to come back and he realized what had happened. Something had caused an explosion. And with the sprinklers going off…that meant there was a fire.

A fire.

For a brief moment, the young man panicked, forgetting about his training and the months he had spent doing this. But it lasted just a moment. Quickly, he got his head together and focused. Unlike most situations, where employees would be required to vacate the building and the patients as soon as possible, more caution and risk had to be taken by orderlies at Arkham. One couldn't just unlock the cells and have the patients running free. They had to follow procedures. The sprinklers were currently running. That should have handled an "A"-type fire. But if it was anything else…

Abruptly, another explosion went off. It was smaller this time, but still enough to send a tremor through the area. Hank was able to zero in on it this time. It was from a different hall in Level E. The inmates howled in delight. The guard began to run by Hank, who was standing there still, almost immobilized. However, at that moment, a loud burst of static came from the radio. In spite of the water, it still managed to send a message, and the earpiece was close enough to still hear it.

"_Fire! We've got a chemical fire on E-3!"_

"_Damnit, how bad?"_

"_It's spreading fast! It's on a janitor's cart! It's igniting the chemicals!"_

"_Shit! Get the damn fire protocol working! We've got to start shutting the block down!"_

Hank froze again on hearing that word. That was it…the worst case scenario. Fire protocol. Evacuating a building in case of a fire was dangerous enough. Evacuating a hospital was even worse. Evacuating a prison was insane. But evacuating Arkham Asylum's Penitentiary? It defied logic. No doubt, at least one out of four members of the staff would love nothing more than to let the prisoners cook. Even now, Hank was tempted to do so himself. However…he knew some of the others wouldn't, and for their sake he couldn't let them down.

He began to move after the guard, but even as he did he tried to remember protocol. It wasn't easy. Although he had been trained for this, it was almost a year ago now, and they didn't exactly do a lot of "fire drills" in a place like this. He struggled to think as he kept running. The sprinklers, the alarms, and the jovial psychotics weren't helping him one bit. Some of them even called out and taunted him as he rushed along. "You better hurry now, boy!" "Run, run! Or you'll be well done!" "Nice day for a barbecue, eh?" But through it all, the protocol began to come back.

The orderlies were to mostly handle evacuating the lesser blocks in case of fire. Level E was the full domain of the guards. Knowing that, Hank nearly ran in one particular direction, back to the lower level blocks. However, he ground to a halt abruptly as he remembered one other detail. Since the guards would be risking life and limb in Level E to evacuate patients, they needed access to the mounted ABC fire extinguishers. Not willing to let the patients access them, the extinguishers were under lock and key too, and the keys were in the possession of the orderlies so that patients couldn't ambush a guard in the confusion and lift them off. Before he could evacuate the other areas, Hank had to unlock extinguishers.

Turning a corner, Hank quickly began to make his way down a new hall. As he did, he looked to the sides for probably the first time he had worked there. He had always made it a point of looking where he was going and never to the sides. Therefore, although he had passed by the extinguishers dozens and dozens of times in his tenure at Arkham, he never actually knew where they were. He had to search for them. As he ran along, he cursed himself as to what he would give for one of those fire-escape maps at the moment…

A few other orderlies ran by as he went along, all going about their own errands. Most of the people who went by were guards. Even they, however, were few in number. Another minor explosion went off, this one closer. Hank realized he was headed in the direction of it. However, he didn't see any fires or guards massing yet, and the sprinklers kept coming. He finally found one extinguisher bay, but it was already unlocked, so he ran on. The prisoners continued to hoot and scream at him. He ran by another. Also unlocked. The smell of smoke became more distinct…a toxic smell. It couldn't have been healthy. He nearly brought his shirt over his mouth to try and block out some of the fumes.

He was about to give up, assuming his job had been done for him, when he spotted it. Just up ahead, he could see a yellow, flickering glow from around the corner leading up to E-3. The guards were all running that way. The hollering was louder than ever here, both from the insane revelry as well as some of the patients genuinely being burned. The guards were flooding to E-3, some of them carrying extinguishers. However, at the junction for E-5 just ahead, one of the ABC extinguishers was still locked. One of the guards ran up to it briefly and tried to get it, but on seeing it still fixed in place cursed and ran on, not able to waste time with it. Hank realized he needed to get that one out before moving to the lower blocks.

In seconds he was on it. He quickly yanked out the keys, fumbled with them for a moment, before finding what he thought was the right one. He scrambled with the lock for a few seconds that almost felt like eternity, before he realized it was wrong. Swearing to himself, he tried a similar key. It fit this time, and the extinguisher became unlocked. However, he didn't think it was sufficient to just leave it there. He needed to run it over. Quickly, he seized the handle and gave a yank.

The extinguisher came out, and immediately fell to the floor. Hank, surprised by the weight, barely managed to keep it from clanging. He was stunned. The extinguisher weighed 40 pounds easily. He needed to exert himself more. Quickly, he lifted it up a bit higher, putting his back into it. He soon turned and began to walk around the corner, meaning to keep heading down the hall…

The high-pitched laugh stopped him in his tracks.

Hank froze, and turned to look inside the hall, toward its direction.

Time seemed to stand still. For a brief moment, he managed to look past him. He saw three guards were already on the floor. One was fully unconscious…or dead. The second was still stunned. Only the third was anywhere close to recovering. Hank had heard before that, wiry as he looked, he was actually a great physical fighter when the time came for it, and quite skilled at disabling people. But that was only for a moment. His focus was soon fully on him.

He was coming right at him like a mad bull, although, miraculously, he wasn't aware of it. He was looking behind him to laugh his head off at the three he had just eluded, but Hank could still see the perpetual grin on his face even from this angle…a grin that he had only seen in file photos or in the newspaper just like everyone else until now. But now, here he was, literally eight feet from him and closing, running full tilt. Then, he turned his head forward again to look in front of him, as he got within four feet of Hank…and he saw his face. Unlike all the other inmates, who could be made to look "human"…not him. That face hadn't changed a bit from the file photos or the papers. It couldn't change. It was who he was…_what_ he was.

He actually could feel his breath as he let out a laugh…but it was a laugh that was cut slightly short even as he ran forward.

There the young man stood, holding the 40 pound fire extinguisher up…and there he was, running right at him. And somehow, impossibly, through some trick of fate…perhaps through some act of luck…perhaps through his training for almost a year in Arkham…Hank's wits saw it. He didn't expect to see Hank in his path. Even if it was for only a fraction of a second, the man…the psychopath…in front of him didn't know what to do.

And in that moment, the longest moment of Hank's life, a million thoughts ran through his head. For just an instant, he saw himself ducking to one side and cringing into a ball. But then…he saw something else. Months of this man causing trouble with his "practical jokes". Months of him leaving grotesque messes for them to clean up. Months of him filling up page after page of reports. In a way…for a moment, he personified not only himself, but all of the other inmates and all they had done, making Hank's life a daily living Hell, robbing him of his humanity and sentencing him to a fate in Arkham worse than the patients themselves were sentenced to.

The laughing…

The endless, daily, mocking, biting, high-pitched, _insane,_ _fucking laughing…_

And for that one moment he had over him, he snapped.

With all the force he could muster after 11 months of labor at carting prisoners and restraints around, Hank swung the 40 pound extinguisher around and buried the sharp edge of the bottom of the tank in his forehead.

The laughter stopped…and that was all Hank needed to hear to snap out of it. It was a totally alien sound…the sound of his mocking, hideous laughter suddenly being cut off into an exclamation of pain after a short, yet solid, thud. Blood erupted from where the tank made contact and began to run down his pasty-white brow. His psychotic eyes slammed shut as his smile vanished into a look of agony. It wasn't an extreme amount…but he did stagger back a whole two steps, stopped in his tracks. His arms went wide as he tried to control the pain he had just received. No doubt, it would have taken him only moments. He was used to getting beaten to a pulp by a man 10 times the person Hank was. Even a 40 pound extinguisher was nothing. Hank, now himself again, dropped the extinguisher. In another second, he might have indeed cringed into that ball, knowing it wouldn't save him. No one could do that to _him_ and live…

But that was when the recovering guard managed to undo his holster, snap up his arm, and fire his taser. Two wires shot through the air and imbedded in the back of Veidt before he even had a chance to recover enough to glare angrily at Hank…and soon he went rigid. He made a horrible, oscillating "ulping" sound as hundreds of volts of electricity were pumped into him.

Hank froze where he was. This was a sight that all of the orderlies dreamed of seeing. They wanted to see the demented bastard feel just a small measure of all the pain he had caused them over the years. However, he was so terrified of himself and what he had just done that he failed to notice it. At any rate, the voltage finally cut off, and as soon as it did, like a puppet clipped of strings, Veidt fell to the ground. Even then, he didn't stop moving. Somehow he managed to writhe. That was all the excuse the guard needed. Gritting his teeth, looking at him with unholy fury, he got to his feet. His baton was out as he staggered over to him, and began to hit him. Again and again it came down, and soon a stream of obscenities followed it. Soon after, his partner managed to recover enough to come over to him. If it were anyone else, he would have pulled him off. As it was…he joined in.

Hank could only stare, even as the sprinkler water ran down his face. He hardly even noticed as more orderlies and guards noticed the noise. The orderlies came behind him, and soon began to chime in. "Beat him! Beat the motherfucker! Split his fucking head open!" They might have, if Cash hadn't heard. He broke it up. Even then, Veidt was still writhing a bit, and still breathing. Cash soon got some order going, both for the guards as well as the orderlies. They checked out the third guard…already dead (prompting the first guard to kick the psychopath in the head one final time in spite). Cash ordered some of the staff to get something to take him away. Only then did Cash directly order Hank to move when he saw he wasn't doing anything but staring.

Only then did Hank realize what had happened.

* * *

_May 18__th_

_I'm so overwhelmed…I have to write this before I get in today._

_Mr. Veidt tried to escape yesterday. Everything was perfect. He had bombs set off in a more heavily populated area of the Level E block with the intent of letting other people go. Everyone assumed one of them were trying to escape and all the guards went to stop them. Meanwhile, he slipped out via a key he got from a bribed guard. Three guards had been ordered to watch his cell during an emergency situation like this, but he killed one and disabled the other two. Since all the checkpoints were null due to the fire alarm, he was going to cut and run right through the Penitentiary until he got to the rear entrance, use a vial of smuggled acid he had on himself to melt the lock, then slip out in a rigged fire truck that would have been responding to the scene._

_It would have gone without a hitch if I hadn't have been there. When I smashed him in the head with that extinguisher, he was stopped cold. The two guards that were left had enough time to taser him and then beat the shit out of him. Arkham Asylum now has it on record that we actually stopped one of his escape attempts. Even if he could set up another escape attempt, he'll be in the Infirmary for weeks until he can walk._

_We were all sent home right after the incident. The guards were called in for double shifts, taking our roles for the night. In about two hours, I'm finally back on duty. If they thought a lot of me before for spotting the poison on Isley, I can only imagine what's going to happen today. I actually helped stop an escape attempt. Sure, I was scared shitless at the time…but I stopped that bastard COLD. I actually nailed him in the head with a fire extinguisher. How many other people in Gotham City can say they managed to do that to that son of a bitch?_

_To be honest…it felt _great.

_I was actually able to shut one of them up in the way I wanted to. I was able to do what thousands of people in this city wish they could do. It was fan-damn-tastic. Even Ralph is going to have a hard time one-upping me after this. Four more weeks…sorry, three weeks and six days, left in Arkham Asylum, and I'm going to be the talk-of-the-town by now. It all came out yesterday already. The officer came out and said he would never have been able to taser him if not for me. I did more than hit the bastard. I can say I actually stopped him._

_Who knows? This might look good on the resume too. I mean, how many people get to write down that they did this to Veidt? If it gets out, I might actually be able to walk in the bad part of town at night. Who's going to mess with someone who decked the biggest psychopath in this city?_

* * *

Hank noticed the change in mood the second he drove through the gates. The guards posted there both stared at him open-mouthed on seeing him drive in. At first, he merely smiled at the thought. No doubt, Hank figured, they were amazed at what he had done and showing it.

However, that line of thinking soon changed. As he parked his car and waved to the other doctors and therapists arriving, they did the same. Some of them even stopped in their tracks and stared at him. As he walked through the doors of the Penitentiary and said high to the watchman, he actually looked at Hank as if he was carrying a bloody chicken in either hand. And it only got worse. None of his coworker orderlies said hi. Some of them even shied away. The guards stared at him. One actually let out a short chuckle on seeing him of what looked like total disbelief. However, it wasn't the kind of laugh from someone who couldn't believe what someone had done…

It was the kind of laugh from someone who was astonished at the nerve someone was showing by walking back in.

By that point, Hank was rather unsettled. The entire trip into Arkham had been as quiet as a tomb. It was almost a relief to start hearing the psychos howling and yelling from further down the hall, a relief to get to Level G, where the locker room and punch clock was. Having about fifteen minutes yet, Hank walked into the locker room first, wondering what was up with everyone. Somehow, he didn't think they were really appreciating what he had done…and that made no sense. Why wouldn't they? They had all been talking about how they'd love it if someone kicked Veidt's ass. Now that he had done it, couldn't they show some congratulations? Maybe they were planning a practical joke or a surprise…although Hank didn't honestly believe that.

As Hank stepped through the door, he noticed one other person was already there. Zachary was at one of the lockers, putting his own effects into them and getting out his combination lock. Seeing him actually brought a slight smile on Hank's face. He soon walked forward, moving in to the side of him and finding an unused locker. He opened it up and began to reach for his wallet and keys. As he did, he turned his head to the side.

"Morning, Zack."

Zachary turned and looked to him in response. The moment he did, seeing who was there…he froze. He soon began to look like most of the other people Hank had seen today. Hank, on his part, barely got the locker open before he noticed that. He looked to Zachary, and sighed a bit.

"Don't tell me you're going to start doing that too."

"…What are you doing here?" Zachary asked, genuinely sounding incredulous. To him, it was as if Hank really didn't belong there.

This confused Hank.

"It's my shift today. I'm going to work."

Zachary blinked in confusion, looking completely stunned by that response. Soon after, he began to shake his head. "No…no, you're not coming into work today." He immediately told him. "I already explained the situation to administration. You were fired yesterday. Your final check is in the mail. Two weeks pay. What in God's name are you doing here?"

Hank, on hearing that, froze as well. He turned to Zachary in confusion.

"Hold on…what? What are you talking about?"

"What's the matter?" Zachary echoed back. "Did you not have any money saved? Well, shit…" He began to turn back to his locker, reaching for the combination. "I've only got $120 in my wallet. You should head to Coben. You can get more from him. He can afford it…"

Hank blinked. "Zack…did you just say I'm fired?"

Zachary stopped what he was doing and looked back to Hank. "Of course you're fired. And they should have revoked your clearance by now. How the hell you managed to get in here…"

"Wait, wait, wait…" Hank said, holding a hand up in a stopping gesture. "Just hang on a second… What the hell did you mean I'm fired? For what? I didn't even get a warning!"

Zachary stared for a moment of silence. Slowly, it seemed to dawn on him that Hank had no idea what he was talking about, that things weren't clear to him. Indeed they weren't, but the head orderly soon began to take that as something inconceivable. Looking at Zachary strangely, he let the lock fall down and turned fully to him.

"For what you did yesterday, you dumbass!" He shouted back. "Is that clear enough for you? Now can you get out of the damn building?"

Hank didn't budge.

"How the Hell can I be fired?! I've put 11 months of my life into this damn job! I found that poison on Isley! I found out when Riker planned to burn down the place! I stopped Veidt from escaping yesterday!"

Zachary stared at Hank a moment longer, his own face still tight. However, after a moment, it began to relax…turning into the same look he had on his face whenever a new orderly did something that seemed obviously right to them but was painfully wrong to him. He looked down and calmed a bit before focusing on Hank hard.

"Hank…you've only been here 11 months. You don't understand how Veidt thinks. How his 'world' works in his twisted little mind. To him, this place is a joke. He doesn't think for one second whenever he comes in here that it's going to hold him…that it _can_ hold him. And you know what? He's right. It can't. For him, this _is_ a revolving door. The thing is, he's known that for years. So he doesn't treat this place like an asylum or a prison. He simply thinks of it as a 'place to go' in between his psychotic, homicidal plans. Maybe he likes to plan things here. Maybe he likes the free room and board. Maybe he likes finding new people he can hire. Whatever the reason, this is in no way, shape, or form a prison for him. The only reason he stays here is because he wants to stay here right up until the time he leaves. Then, the way it works is he goes out and does whatever he likes to do for 'fun', the Batman comes and busts him up, and he gets thrown back here to think of what to do next time. And all of this happens according to the way _he_ wants it, not anyone else.

"The day he walked into Arkham he knew the exact day, hour, and maybe even minute he was going to leave again. The only thing we could do was wait for it and try to guess when it would be. Yesterday…he fully planned on leaving Arkham. By this time, he planned to be back in one of his damn purple custom-made suits brewing poison or planning to take busloads of kids hostage or hiring recent releases from Arkham for his latest gang or whatever. Instead, because of _you_, he's lying in an infirmary getting put back together again…and he's still in Arkham.

"Hank, listen to me… To him, this wasn't you stopping a criminal from escaping. This was like someone walking into _your_ house when you planned on going out on a date, knocking you out, and tying you up so that you had to miss it. Only worse. To him, he _had_ to do this. He had to go out and cause mayhem and then have the Batman try to stop him because _that's what he does. That's all he does._ You didn't just knock him out. You spat in his face and told him, 'You're not allowed to have any 'fun' or go 'play' with the Batman this time…you have to stay right here.'"

Hank's anger gradually abated as he heard this. It slowly dawned on him what Zachary is saying. The head orderly, however, turned grimmer yet and moved in closer.

"…This morning…Veidt, despite being so busted up, asked a nurse what your name was. He refused to tell him. Despite being unable to walk and strapped to a bed, Veidt got so mad that he broke every bone in the man's right hand. He wants to kill you, Hank. He wants to kill you more than anything in the whole wide world. Crane was just screwing around with you. Veidt _hates _you. You don't need to be in Arkham right now or ever again. You need to get out of the city…out of the state…Hell, maybe even out of the country. Change your name if you can."

Hearing these latest parts, however, made Hank change again. His mouth slackened, and slowly he began to shake his head.

"No…no, I can't do that…"

"You don't have a choice, Hank."

"I…I did the right thing… I did a good thing… I saved God knows how many people…"

"He's going to kill you the first chance he gets, Hank. The second he gets out of here he's going to do it first. That could be at any time. It could be today. It could be right _now_."

Hank stood there apoplectic. "I have…I have two more semesters…two more to go…then I have my degree. Two more." His volume began to rise. "You're asking me to not even have a damn high school diploma to my name…!"

Abruptly, his uniform lapel was seized. He received a sharp snap…enough to shake him out of it. The young man looked up and saw Zachary staring in his face from close range, his eyes blazing.

"I'm sorry, alright?! I'm sorry this happened! But it still happened! For the love of God, Hank! It means nothing to him to cut through all of us to get to you! Or through your family!"

The two men were both silent. Hank stared back at Zachary, and he stared back at him. Neither said anything. Zachary's last words echoed through the room. Finally, he loosened up and let him go. He leaned back.

"…I have $120 in my wallet. It's yours. I'm sorry, I can't do any more than that." The head orderly finally said. He began to shake his head. "I'm really sorry, Hank. If this was a perfect world, you'd have your name mounted on the wall. But this isn't a perfect world. This isn't even a world where anything makes sense. This is Arkham."

* * *

_May 19__th_

_This is my final entry before I cover this fucking thing with lighter fluid and burn it up._

_I watched the news this morning. The administration at Arkham Asylum was on the news giving the story to the press, about how their newest modifications in security and personnel are breakthroughs. How even someone like Veidt can't escape anymore, and that the "revolving door" has finally been "locked in place". My name wasn't even mentioned once. The damn bastards stole my fucking name from me and they didn't even bother using it._

_So this is where my story ends…farther back than when I began._

_I spent 11 months in the worst hellhole in Gotham City and the United States of America. Possibly the worst in the world. In the end, it took everything from me. My social life, my relationship with my family, my education, my career, my peace of mind, my stamina, my energy, my faith in humanity, my ability to sleep at night…and, most recently, the last dime of my savings to try and start a new life in Canada. It's not much. I had to use almost all of it to pay my last rent and close out costs on my car as well as get a new name. I'll have ten bucks in my pocket when I get to Alberta in a week, and not even a valid driver's license. In the end, Allen was the one who managed to make it. I became just another statistic like the other six._

_So that's what Arkham Asylum does to people. I did the jobs no one else would. I washed shit off of people who crapped their pants on purpose, cleaned out rotten milk from door cracks, listened to dozens of people howl threats and perversions to me every night for week-long stretches, and put myself in a more vulnerable position against the most dangerous people in the country where marines with Desert Eagles wouldn't go. And in the end, I got nothing for it. Arkham only took away what I had to begin with._

_Someone once told me that there was no such thing as evil…only an absence of good. Hell is terrible not because it's filled with evil, but because it lacks any good thing. If that's the case, then Arkham is indeed Hell…the closest thing to Hell on Earth that you can get._

_And as I'm left standing here, I can't help but wonder. Is it really any surprise that Arkham is so corrupt and mismanaged? Exactly how long can a person live in that kind of "vacuum" before they lose what little good they have? Maybe Arkham doesn't attract these type of people…maybe it churns them out._

_I had a bit more to say…but I can't really think right now. That damn dog downstairs is going off again. It sounds almost like _him_ now… _

_I can almost hear a laugh on every bark… I told the landlord this morning to shut him up…_

_Maybe I'll go see him in person. Yeah…maybe all we really need is a face-to-face, heart-to-heart. I am the "Best Interpersonal Communicator", after all._

_Just him, me, and my award that says so._

_It doesn't quite weigh 40 pounds…but it'll do._

* * *

The End


End file.
